Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Rags To Riches In WoW - Horde Style: Day 2

On day 1 of this series most of what I did was just get the ball rolling. Now it's time for the fun part: logging in. It's like Christmas.

Please let there be no lump of Coal. Although, I could probably sell that...

After what seems like an eternity, I'm in and staring at the mailbox. And let me tell you, there is no better feeling than to open your mail and see this...



WooHoo! Here's what sold and for how much...

Rough Stone: 0.06g
Copper Bar: 0.84g
Linen Cloth: 0.18g
Light Leather: 0.24g
Light Leather: 0.28g
Small Egg: 0.10g
Small Egg: 0.23g
Small Egg: 0.38g
Small Egg: 0.38g
Linen Cloth: 0.06g

In case you haven't figured it out, I'm going to represent all prices in gold to make it simpler to manage for me. To read the above, everything after the decimal point is silver. What's before is gold. Copper is not included because it's a trivial amount. So my Rough Stone that I have listed there for .06g can be read as 6 silver.

Minus fees from the Auction House (AH), and what little I have in my pockets, I'm sitting pretty with 2.68 gold.



Now we're cooking with Condensed Nether Gas! I enjoy the moment by just standing by the mailbox for a little and jingling the coin in my pockets just like Grandpa Og does when he's got nothing better to do.

Feels good.

OK, back to the AH!

The first thing I should look for are bargains, but I need a wand. For all you low level mages, locks and priests out there you need to get a wand. Mana control and really good DPS. They're essential. Not all wands are the same so read through the stats first. I like the Lesser Magic Wand, Greater Magic Wand and Skycaller in that order for under 20.

"Og, Skycaller is a blue wand. They sell for 15 gold or more. Cripes! What level 16 main has that kinda coin?"

/cheer
/throw confetti

Welcome! If you're asking that question then you must be a new visitor to this blog. Here's what you do:


  1. Keep reading this series
  2. Read my first series on this very same topic
  3. Add my blog to your feed
  4. Read all my other posts in this blog
  5. Tell me how wonderful I am


Step #5 is more for me than for you...I could use a little boost to my self-esteem.

/look in mirror
/repeat self-affirmations

So, back to my wand, I find a Lesser Magic one for 13 silver and snatch it up.



Time to fire up the search!

If you aren't sure how I'm doing my scans for these screens, I'm using Auctioneer Classic (AC). If you want to know how to configure and use it you can read an earlier post of mine on how to search auctions using AC.

After my search (I've already scanned the AH...always scan before searching with AC) I'm seeing this...



I see a tempting auction of Spider's Silk (one of my favorite targets) at 1 gold for the pair. It's really tempting since AC is telling me that I can sell it for nearly 3 gold a piece. Hmmmmmmm, that's kinda expensive from my experience. Usually it sells for just under a gold on other realms/factions.

My concern is that I only have two scans of the AH under my belt. I don't have historical data to even out the outliers (i.e. the really, really, really high prices that are out to gouge or manipulate the market). This could be a case when only the gougers have Spider's Silk up for bid, I buy and the market get's saturated.

Abnormally high prices encourages farming like moths to a flame.

So let me check what the competition is...



Awesome! Waaaaay under competition. And it's easy to tell how under priced it is because of the color coding Auctioneer Advanced does. Blue is good. Red means you-gotta-be-freakin-kidding-me. Based on this info I know these will sell.

Bought them.

More searching uncovers Silver Bars at a good price...



Bought those too.

You're getting the idea. By the end of my session I've purchased these items (the Earthroot is from a bid I placed earlier and won so it's included here)...

Spider's Silk (x2) 1.0g
Shadowgem (x3) 0.2g
Silver Bar (x3) 0.9g
Silk Cloth (x20) 0.24g
Earthroot (x3) .01g

...and here is how I list them...

Spider's Silk: (x1) 1.76g
Spider's Silk: (x1) 1.76g
Earthroot: (x1) 0.05g
Earthroot: (x1) 0.05g
Earthroot: (x1) 0.05g
Silver Bar: (x1) 0.75g
Silver Bar: (x1) 0.75g
Silver Bar: (x1) 0.75g
Shadowgem: (x1) 0.28g
Shadowgem: (x1) 0.28g
Shadowgem: (x1) 0.28g
Silk Cloth: (x20) 0.64g

At this point I only have a couple coins in my bag so I go get First Aid (love, love, love that skill) and I'm off to tryout my new wand.

Life is good.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Telling my story to do my part on #5...

I recently started new toons on two (new) servers to play with some coworkers (they insist on doing both Horde and Alliance PvP, where I have no presence). I really wasn't looking forward to starting from scratch again, and to compound things I'd also decided that these toons had to represent a minimal time investment on my part--I'm playing one night a week per toon, period. I play enough WoW already!

I've almost always been aware that it's possible to use the AH to make money, but I never wanted to do it--I wanted to make money by playing the game, not the AH, and I wasn't sure I really had a head for finding bargains anyways. But after following a link here from Tobold's and reading your stuff for beginners, I really saw for the first time how easy it might be to do this. I created bank alts on both servers, leveled them to about 6, and brought them to their respective cities (UC/SW) with about 5 silver each in their pockets. After building a database by doing scans every morning for a week while I got ready for work, I began, and sure enough, about 10 days later both have purses exceeding 100 gold and have bought some nice stuff for myself and my friends besides as we level. I still kinda can't believe that I could turn 5 silver into 100 gold.

I don't know if you're doing anything revolutionary or not here--but this is the first time someone told me that I could make gold on the AH and gave me enough information that I wanted to try...so thanks for what you've done here.

Og said...

Levitz - Fantastic news about your successes. Congrats...you earned it!

Nothing I write about in here is revolutionary, and it's been done hundreds, if not thousands, of times before. And I'm not particularly smart or inventive so if I can do it then anyone can.

Thanks for sharing your wins and the kind words. It's nice to know that all this drivel I write is at least somewhat coherent and useable.

/yell HooWaa!

Anonymous said...

Og,

*nudge* BtmScanner post now please. I need a refresher thanks to my hiatus from WoW

Anonymous said...

I just like your blog, esp. the "Rags to riches". I used some of your advices and got some nice gear to buy. Maybe I can save a bit for a epic flying mount but I am too busy to spend my money for my alts *G*

I loved the pic with the blood elf praying in front of the mailbox. :) Looking forward for the next days.

BTW what is this mailbox addon with the "Take all" "Take cash"? Could save me a fair bit of time. ;)

regards
Chaoskas

Og said...

Chris - Nudge heard loud and clear. I've been getting the sense that a BottomScanner post is very much in demand so it's in my queue. It's coming, I just don't know when. But I will tell you that it'll be sooner rather than later.

And, yes, I really could be more vague if I tried. I'm a pro.

Chaoskas - Thanks and yay! Glad to here these tips actually make sense.

And that's an astute observation on my mailbox mod. I use a mod I stumbled over when grabbing the Omen threat meter. It's called OpenAll and it saves a boat load of time. I used to use CT_Mail, but that's too buggy and too slow.

You can get the OpenAll mod from this list of mods over at WoWAce.com - http://files.wowace.com/sw-o.html

Sellia said...

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one to find the price a bit high on Blade's Edge. =)

As usual, a great post ! Keep them coming !!!