The Second Best Add-On for the AH

Today Cold published an interesting post on his blog about The Only AH Add-On Required... Well, actually on the Cold's Gold Factory there are interesting posts every day, but I wanted to talk about this one in particular.

For Cold, the only add-on you will never need is your brain. Well, I quite disagree: there is another fundamental add-on you should use (especially if you're really using only your brain): Pen and Paper.

Writing notes is fundamental, even when you're using a lot of add-ons: since you're the one inserting manually your notes, the old fashioned pen and paper (or even better: pencil and paper) is nearly free of data-pollution risks.

Writing things down helps reasoning, and makes visualizing a lot easier. You have to choose what to write and what not to write (you can't just mindlessly collect data as Auctioneer would do), so every time you take your pencil you're making decisions. Having to make decision is good.
You learn more by applying and deciding than just by watching.

I remember that in my first days on the AH I used just my brain, pencil, paper, rubber and sometimes a calculator. This was years ago, at the beginning of the BC, and I used to strongly refuse to download any kind of AH add-on. Years later I finally decided to start using add-ons more and it certainly made the AH easier and faster... But I'm quite sure those years weren't useless (and, well, glyphs didn't exist back then, so I didn't have to post those huge amount of different little things).

(BTW, in Rift I'll have to go back to those methods, since there aren't add-ons O.o)

Win a Pet with Ele-Mental Gold

For those who love pets, but don't want to pay real money for them, there is a great oppotunity to get one for free! You have a week to join the Ele-Mentalgold's Win A Pet Contest
To participate you just have to go there and make a comment answering the question: "What makes you such an avid collector of mounts or pets?"

Well, if you're going to participate you surely have an answer for that, don't you?

Rift: The Planes of Telara (Open Beta soon)

I wanted to talk about this new MMORPG, Rift: Planes of Telara, which is due to be released in March.

I didn't take part in any of the closed beta, but I looking forward to participate to the Open Beta, also to decide if I will buy or not the game.

If you haven't heard of Rift: Planes of Telara yet, let me summarize what I know for you.

Rift will keep a lot of mechanics and an interface very close to what we're used to see in World of Warcraft, but will make both substantial changes to the class system and subtle adjustment to other aspects of the game. 

It will also use something similar to Warhammer Online's open quest system in what they'll call Rifts: openings to other planes of existence that players will have to close to avoid them spawn invasion forces on the world of Telara. If left unchecked they can dramatically change the landscape of the world surrounding them, and also conquer villages, replacing friendly villagers with rather unfriendly elementals.

Class System

The class system is really different from everything I have experienced before. You have to choose one out of four Callings, and then you'll have to choose which three "talent trees" will compose your "class". For instance, the Calling named "Rogue" has in itself both what we know has a Rogue and what we know has a Hunter (and other things we don't have in World of Warcraft). If you want you can choose your "Souls" (i.e. which talents trees to have) to be something similar to a Rogue, or to be something similar to an Hunter. But you could also create a mix of the two, like a rogue-like melee-fighter with a pet or something totally different (thanks to the Soul that don't resemble neither of the two classes). One of the exemples of an official video was a "Teleporting Ranger".

The four Callings are Warrior, Cleric, Rogue, Mage.

Professions

Since this is a gold making blog I suppose you'll be interested in the economic aspects of the game.

Professions closely resemble those of World of Warcraft, with gathering and crafting professions and even an equivalent of Enchanting (Runecrafting... And instead of "Disenchant" you "Runebreak").

There are twelve professions and each character can learn three of them (yep, three!)

Gathering Professions

Butchery - Gather hides and useful parts of animals

Foraging - Gather herbs and wood

Mining - Gather minerals and ores

Crafting Professions

Outfitting - Craft Cloth and Leather Armor

Armorsmithing - Craft Mail and Plate Armor and Shields

Weaponsmithing - Craft Weapons

Artificing - Crafts Necklaces, Rings, Staffs, Totems and Wands

Runecrafting - Equivalent of Enchanting, Enchants here are called Runes

Apothecary - Equivalent of Alchemy: crafts Flasks, Potion, Philters, Tonics and Vials

Most recipes will be learned directly from the trainer for gold (money is actually broken down in Platinum, Gold, instead of Gold, Silver, Copper), but others are bought with tokens gained through daily quests.

I didn't found a lot about the AH itself, except the fact that it actually exists and a comment about it working well.

The Open Beta

The Open Beta event, titled "Telara the Merciless" will begin on Tuesday, Feb. 15 2011 at 10:00 AM PST (18:00 GMT) and will and on Monday, Feb. 21 2011 at 10:00 AM PST (18:00 GMT). So it's a full six days, great if you really don't know what to do that week-end.

For me, this will be a great chance to get the feel of the game before buying it. I'll definitely participate!

I suggest to everyone to go try, so we'll help the guys at Trion Worlds to test their game (and their servers) and at the same time everyone will be able to form an idea of the game.

Obviously it's not the same as having the true game (you can't even reach max level in the Beta), but it's surely better than just reading websites about it!

Did you play at the Closed Beta events? Are you planning of participating at the Open Beta?

Do you think you'll buy Rift?

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Hi,
I didn't post in the last days because I'm not really feeling well, and writing in a foreign language when you can hardly read a even a book in your isn't the best thing in the world.
I know I should have material prepared for this kind of things, but this time I didn't... So, this is the reason I'm not posting these days, the blog will became more alive as soon as my body temperature goes back somewhere between 36 and 37° Celsius.

In the meantime, someone linked me this post: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2059307163?page=1
I suppose mmo-champion found it first, but well, I think it's funny, so I'll repost it here for you.

I'm sorry for being such a bad blogger this month.
Exams were hard enough without getting sick.

How are things going for you? 4.0.6 made you a lot of profit?

Patch 4.0.6 are you prepared?

So, Patch 4.0.6 is now coming (really soon if you're in the US, tomorrow if you're in EU servers).
I've already written a good number of posts about this patch, so I'll divide them by profession and add some other comments:

Jewelcrafting:

• New metagems on the way!

Other changes to metagems: [Eternal Shadowspirit Diamond] the block value has been lowered from +5% to +1%

• Sockets will be added on crafted epic gear

This is really a change to Tailoring/Leatherworking/Blacksmithing, but it has a great impact also on JC, since most people will need two more gems for their equip. No changes have been seen on PTR regarding [Dragonkiller Tunic] / [Assassin's Chestplate] / [Belt of Nefarious Whispers] / [Corded Viper Belt].

Another gem cut had been added: Vivid Dream Emerald provides resilience/spell penetration and can be purchased for 3 Illustrious Tokens.

Enchanting:

• New enchanting recipes (and nerf to [Enchant Off-Hand - Superior Intellect])

Other things:
Enchant Cloak - Dodge can no longer be cast on capes below the character level 35 requirement.

[Formula: Enchant Cloak - Dodge] was one of the better enchantments for BoA cloaks (obviously not as good as [Formula: Enchant Cloak - Stealth], but still good)... So now there won't be this option anymore.

Enchant 2H Weapon - Mighty Agility required Runed Elementium Rod, which is learned at a higher skill level. This has been addressed.

Engineering:

• Engineers won't need Volatile Air anymore (well, not as much as they need now, anyway)

Engineers will both need less [Volatile Air]s and find more of them.

Alchemy:

• Alchemists and 4.0.6

I said they would have made [Lifebound Alchemist Stone] not disenchantable anymore, and they actually did so the day after I posted that... All the other information in the post are still valid, as far as I know.

Best of January

Here we are again for January's Best of the Month Blogging Carnival!
If you're a blogger and you missed this chance, remember that you can submit an entry for February as soon as you have a post you love to submit as an entry... Check the rules at the Best of the Month Blogging Carnival page!
Now, let's see what this month has brought us:


The Auctioneer Hot Spot In New Orgrimmar, form Cold's Gold Factory
New Orgrimmar

You aren't still basing your auctioneering operations in the near front gate of Orgrimmar are you? The front gate commerce area in the new Orgrimmar era is one of the least efficient areas to use as your base of operations since Cataclysm. It is really bad compared to my new favorite area. (Read More)

TradeSkillMaster Glyph Crafting Part 1 & 2, from Ele-Mental Gold
(Instead of showing you the first lines of the posts, I'll put here a table of contents. Kreaton)
TradeSkillMaster Glyph Crafting Part 1
What is TradeSkillMaster?
Installation
Scanning
Configuration Part 1
TradeSkillMaster Glyph Crafting Part 2
Managing Crafts
Crafting
Shopping and Adjusting Prices
Finishing the Crafting Steps
Posting Configuration and Groups
Adding Items to Groups

Cata Darkmoon Cards- Fighting Competition with Singles? This is the Time to Buy! from ALTOs Gold"ish" Advice- The Worst WoW Blog Ever!
Last night, while I was selling a bunch of Mysterious Fortune Cards, I hit the AH, and I noticed a few things. One, when I searched the quest tab, there were a TON of cards listed, even more than normal (there are alot of Scribes on my server). So I started typing. Of Waves. Of Embers. Of Stones. Of Winds. And to my surprise, I was able to pick up a few items... (Read More)

Profit Margins: "Go Big or Go Home" or "Slow and Steady", from Bank of Wukam
This is an issue that troubled me quite a bit when I first started getting into serious jewel crafting for profit toward the end of LK. Since I was buying the uncut gems and not prospecting for them (I'm not sure it was profitable to prospect Titanium Ore for epics) I often ran into problems when the cut gem was selling for maybe 10-15g more than the uncut. I would usually just ignore that gem completely and focus on the ones that sold for a wider profit margin. However... (Read More)



THE GOLD QUEEN'S MUST-HAVE ADDONS, from The Gold Queen
I want to tell you about some of my favourite addons for buying, selling and keeping track of my auctions and gold making online.

1. Auctioneer
Download from Curse addons at http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/auctioneer.aspx
The grand-daddy of them all, Auctioneer is modular, and lets you download the entire suite or just the parts that you need. It keeps track of auction data, makes the auction house easier to use and navigate, lets you search for items, sell, check prices, everything! (Read More)

Kill Some Critters, Get A Critter!, from Miss Mediocre
Though I hate to encourage the slaughter of innocent bunnies, squirrels, sheep, cats, and all those other cute little critters scampering about Azeroth, I love pets. Offer me an Armadillo Pup companion, and I’ll slaughter 50,000 critters with a smile on my face! Well, maybe not a smile, but I’ll at least do it... (Read More)


Coattail Surfing, from Player Vs Auction House
Being a highly successful auctioneer is a lot of work. It is all about risky venture capitalism, identifying nascent markets, tapping into hitherto untapped fonts of wealth, cultivating your own army of farmers, constant awareness of breaking-news patch notes, daily (or hourly) scanning of the AH, commercial espionage of your competition, and occasionally downright sabotaging of said competition.(Read More)

Why I make Gold? My story, from Trading with Zoxy
For me MMOs started when LOTR came out I had played games like Baldurs Gate and the such but never got into a MMO until some mates from work asked me to join them and play LOTR . I Really enjoyed the Crafting aspect and Worked out a way to make a lot of gold with my top level professions... (Read More)

Getting rid of what I had

This is a follow-up from my post What should I do?.... I wanted to report what I did with all that material (well, not all... let's say one third of it)... For those of you who wonder how having problems with this is possible, look at Zoxy's "What should I do?" post... Yes, Zoxy had my same problem, as many others! It's funny we choose the same name for our posts ^_^ I posted just ten days earlier, so this is clearly a problem of these weeks.

I'm still drowning in a huge amount of gems, but things actually started working great. What really did the trick is this comment from Altolycus, from ALTOs Gold"ish" Advice- The Worst WoW Blog Ever!:

What has also worked for me is checking the opposite faction and seeing the prices over there. Normally, the major farmers hit one side and not the other. 

I know I should have thought about it, but sometimes the most obvious solution are the most difficult to find!
I sent to my Horde toon 15 stacks of [Greater Celestial Essence], 10 stacks of [Hardened Elementium Bar] and a lesser quantity of some other things (two stacks of [Hypnotic Dust], a Darkmoon Fair  card of which I had three and the usual pets). My alt didn't have a lot of gold, just 3k (I had transfered some expensive items the other way round just days before). Next evening it had 25k, and I didn't had sold half of what I had sent. [Greater Celestial Essence] where going for ~80g each (40g Alliance side),  [Hardened Elementium Bar] for nearly 200g (120g Alliance side). Prices dropped a bit in the following days, so acting by without checking Horde's AH for sometime actually did me good. Prices are still a bit higher than in the Alliance, and things move faster.
This gave me the ability of smelting nearly all the Elementium I had left (I just have other 50 stacks in Ore form now) and made me trust disenchanting a bit more.
What I'm doing is keeping selling hardened elementium bars, but now to both faction... That's a lot quicker!

So, thanks Altolycus!

Dailies aren't enough to get rid of [Nightstone], [Zephyrite] and [Jasper], and I still hadn't time to craft all the [Jasper Ring] I should... When I have some spare time I cut a bunch of [Zephyrite] and sell them to the vendor. If some "Perfects" proc, I try to sell them on the AH, no more than two at a time (I vendor the others. No way I'll keep all of them in my bag).

[Alicite] Is the worst so far, since [Alicite Pendant] don't sell at any price (at least on my server). [Alicite] is consistently put in the AH under the vendor price of the cut version... Usually around 8g 50s, but I'm not buying them since the work of cutting and vendoring is quite long and boring even considering just the [Alicite] I already have.
[Hypnotic Dust] is going for 10g, and not selling very well. Since [Alicite Pendant] really don't sell, I still don't think crafting [Alicite Pendant] would be great. There isn't really a lot of profit I can make from them.
The same applies to [Jasper Ring], but since the [Jasper Ring] already repay themselves ([Jasper] is aroung 9g on my server, while [Hypnotic Dust] is sold at 10g each), I don't have any problem in crafting them.

I still have a big amount of [Shadowspirit Diamond], but they're starting to sell (both cut and raw)... I get 10k just this night from selling them. I started whispering to other seller searching those who will agree not to undercut me if I post things exactly at the same price they are posting them, making them doing the same for me. Some of them actually thanked me! I now have to be less vigilant on the AH and this actually helped my sanity a lot.
I'm selling some [Shadowspirit Diamond] every day, for prices that can vary a lot... from 140g to 330g!

I haven't tried engineering pets yet, since I don't have an engineer alt. I should have started to work with a friend of mine (the same that helps me cross-trading), but we were both quite busy in the last days.

---

It also seems that botters are having an hard time now, due to some hotfixes made by Blizzard... This could very well reduce my problems if the AH stops to be flooded by raw mats. I'm actually still seeing some gold-farmers, but surely less than before (this supposing that people with name composed by twelve random character are gold-farmers).
I have still a lot of [Obsidium Ore] stockpiled, so this would really be great!

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You have just one day left to participate in January's Best of the Month Blogging Carnival! 

It's very easy to participate: you have time until February the 4th to choose your favorite post of January for your blog, add a link to the Carnival and send me an e-mail at kreaton05 (at) gmail.com

On February the 5th I'll publish the posts I've received for the month of December... Go to the Best of the Month Blogging Carnival page to check all the rules!

You can also see the Best of December post!

January it's over. What was your best post?

You have now 4 days to participate to the Best of the Month Blogging Carnival I host.
Last month we had a lot of cool participants, and you actually don't have to do nearly anything to participate: just select a post you made in January, link it to the Best of the Month Blogging Carnival page and then send me an e-mail at kreaton05 (at) gmail.com

Simple as that!
You don't even have to write a new post...
It's "just" a way to show the post you're more proud of, giving everyone a second chance to read it. How many times has happened to you to think "the topic of this carnival is cool, but I have this other great thing to say!"? Now there is a Carnival for the posts YOU value the most!
Don't miss your chance!