I’m honest and open when people ask me questions. I’ve got a track record of demonstrating that here in my guides and my posts each week. I always make time to talk to people in-game when I get random whispers. I always make time to listen. I enjoy the contact, I enjoy teaching, I enjoy helping. With me so far?

There’s one thing that seriously pisses me off though – when someone approaches me, asks for my advice and upon receiving it actively refutes it.

Now I freely admit to being wrong on occasion – ok once, in June of ’97 – but this is a different kettle of fish.

Imagine one day (continue reading…)

It’s important in business to always appreciate new and different approaches that catch you off guard. These approaches are far from being bad, too!

Having deftly slipped through our defenses we can learn a tremendous amount from asking ourselves ‘how the hell did that just happen?’ and going back over the experience step by step to find out.

So quite recently I was playing my 5-box shaman team, questing away in Dragonblight and minding my own business. I should probably explain before continuing that my shaman team are named after a group of Russian composers – their names are Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Antonovich and Porfiryevich.

So you can imagine my confusion when I received the following whisper: (continue reading…)

I always appreciate interesting and innovative approaches to old problems. Over a decade ago in the relative lawlessness of pre-trammel Ultima Online you really needed to have your wits about you to not get screwed over.

There were always new scams and you had to make sure you were well researched and permanently ‘on guard’ to prevent yourself getting ripped off. I really enjoyed the savageness of this. As a result I always had an appreciation for scams that nearly got me because they took my abilities and awareness right to the edge.

So when I read [this article] today about select McDonalds restaurants in Sweden being used as polling places for the coming 2010 election I was intrigued to say the least.

Not only will people be able to vote at the McDonalds restaurants but they’ll be able to vote there up to two weeks ahead of time! The stated reasons for this initiative are to improve a historically lower voting rate in these areas and to create more engagement particularly from younger voters that frequent the establishments.

My initial reaction was that this was a bad idea. Mixing private enterprise and the democratic process? Never work! Then as I thought about it more over the course of the day I came to appreciate how clever this really was.

As the article didnt go into detail on how they’ll ensure the process is secure and the venue politically neutral I shall wear my [Yellow Hat] and assume those points ARE taken care of. So what, then, are the potential results of this initiative? Increased voter participation for the government and increased sales for McDonalds.

When I hear about clever ideas like this that potentially make for great synergies I always wonder why nobody thought of them until now. I’m not just talking about large scale stuff like this but even little process improvements in the workplace. Stuff that you never thought of but that hits you like a breath of fresh air and you make that “ahhhhhhh!” realisation.

Have you come up with ideas like this yourself? Been around when others had them? How much did they change things for you? I want to hear about your experiences with innovative concepts and clever ideas. Let’s have them!

It’s been a while since I posted about how I’m doing with my gold. Time for an update!

Since reaching the gold cap I’ve relaxed on levels of activity but didnt by any means stop posting auctions or making gold. I bought the [Grand Black War Mammoth] drop for 10k off someone after I lost the roll since I’m a sucker for feats of strength.

I also slowly gathered the materials to craft a [Sulfuron Hammer] in the naive hope an [Eye of Sulfuras] will drop for me one of these weeks. Interesting to note the price variability (and rareness) of [Blood of the Mountain]. Definite profit there!

With that said and a little gold spent I’m currently around 220k liquid with a lot more than that in materials. I’ve been enjoying using the remote armory lately too, mainly for searching for and buying cheap materials. I think it’s too inefficient to use to cancel/relist undercut auctions at this stage.

Here’s a few screenshots:

I’ve been buying up hugely on enchanting materials whenever the market takes a dip. I’ve also been buying up loads of cheap items on US-Shadowsong to transfer across with my old alts when I finally move them to US-Aman’thul with Saate.

Here’s a quick mashup of two screenshots I took this morning showing some of the stuff I’ve been saving, probably most notable in that lot is the 70 x [Pristine Black Diamond] that I’ve been buying on US-Shadowsong for 50-150g!

What’s gold progress like for everyone else? Anyone else been using the remote auction house app? Would love to hear how you’re going in the comments below!

People often chat to me about their gold making techniques and experiences. From time to time I see the phrase ‘controlling the market’ used and it bothers me. The economically uninitiated throw it around freely and for them it’s all about ego ego ego.

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” -Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

If you’re the single person on your server with an ultra-rare recipe then you’re definitely entitled to say you ‘control’ the market. Similarly if you’re supplying a large majority (ie 90% plus) of a high demand item you may also be able to make that claim.

In reality, though, how often do you think that’s the case? It’d be a very rare occurrence these days, I can tell you that. I know that even the items I profit from most regularly I don’t have any sort of monopoly on.

There’s a big difference between controlling a market and identifying a market with reasonable demand and low supplier participation rates.

The above is a simple diagram I put together to help demonstrate my point. Unless you can control supply you can’t control the market. At the very best if you’re buying out everything in the Auction House you can temporarily set a higher price. That is until additional suppliers come along of course.

If the resupply rate is sufficiently low and there’s demand then you can make a profit this way. Although, again, most of the time I see people bragging about this it’s been for foolish high-supply materials.

I fondly remember, some years back, getting a hate whisper from someone after I’d posted a bunch of Greater Eternal Essences on the AH. The person abused me and told me I was setting my auctions too low. I responded and said something like “I set them at what I felt was an appropriate price, buy them if you think they’re too low”.

Totally misunderstanding what I’d said, the person assumed that in saying the word “set” I meant I’d “set” the market price. Boy was he hopping mad at that – “YOU SET THE PRICE? I’ve been controlling the market and setting the price for weeks!” he exclaimed. Wrong wrong wrong!

Clearly because he did not control the supply he did not control the market. Some random person was able to come along and unknowingly upset his imaginary little tea party.

So next time before you throw about the term ‘Controlling the market’ maybe have a think about it. Is it really the best way to describe what you’re doing or is perhaps “Minor manipulation through focused and regular intervention” more apt? actually…never mind me :p

So after reaching gold cap a few weeks back I did an interview with warcraftecon.net that was all about my journey to reaching the gold cap.

It was fun and worth the read I think, go check it out!

Yesterday I officially hit the gold cap – the official limit at which point your character cannot receive any more gold. How much exactly? This much:

If anyone trades me even a copper, or if I try to take money from auctions from my mailbox, I get the following error message:

I thought in honor of this milestone I’d share some statistics based on my last 12 months of auctions data. Although my record keeping (via beancounter) is quite complete I’m missing all my raptor pet sales which I’d estimate as being around 100k.

My best sellers

A few interesting things here. You’ll notice that around August I stopped making gold by buying/reselling Abyss crystals. At the same time the market on the 40 stamina to bracer enchant collapsed. Why? The Argent Tournament patch was introduced, and the sudden flood of Abyss Crystals (from the 5-man) onto the market saw prices drop from 120g to 20g and under!

My most profitable week

I’ve had some good weeks, and I’ve had some really good weeks. My best week in the last 12 months was the 7th-13th June with approximately 35k in profit. The big spike day here was partly due to some Darkmoon Decks I’d hung onto from throughout the previous month leading up to the faire.

Where to from here? Well I’m probably sitting at around 230k at the moment so it’ll no doubt be time to spend a small amount on a few things I’ve been avoiding like the Kirin’tor ring and a chopper. From there I guess I’ll probably keep going…300k here I come!

Got any specific questions on how I did it? Hit me up with a comment below!

Recent [development notes] have announced that in an upcoming patch an NPC named [Frozo the Renowned] will be added to the game. This npc, an item vendor, will trade items for your [Frozen Orb] which up until now people have been either vendoring or auctioning for not much more than vendor price.

Players will be able to trade 6 orbs in for a [Crusader Orb], 4 orbs in for a [Runed Orb] or a single orb in for a [Frost Lotus], [Eternal Air], [Eternal Earth], [Eternal Fire], [Eternal Life], [Eternal Shadow] or [Eternal Water].

A lot of people have read this and had the obvious light bulb go off in their head. I know on my server people are already spamming trade chat with ‘WTB Frozen Orb – 15g/each’. In the auction house the orbs have already normalized at around 20g/each. They’re all wrong if they think this is going to turn out to be a money maker though.

Why? There’s a number of reasons, here are two big ones. First and foremost is that it’s a very obvious one-step change which means everybody is immediately aware of the ramifications and participation in stockpiling frozen orbs will be widespread. This will immediately mean nobody is getting their orbs for 6g off the auction house anymore, there’s increased demand for the orbs which is why the prices are already up.

Secondly the reason for this change is to address the already massive oversupply of frozen orbs in the system. Lots of players were ALREADY sitting on a lot of orbs from the recent random heroics change. Oversupply on such a large scale is going to damage prices and the extra consideration of lost AH deposit costs (due to being undercut) is going to also impact profit margins.

My conservative estimate is that around patch time we’ll see frozen orbs selling for around 17g and the eternals and frost lotus selling for not more than 5g above this. It’s not worth even looking at the Crusader and Runed orbs as I expect their value will be lower than the cost of the frozen orbs needed to pay for them.

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment below and let me know how you think prices will turn out.