September 2009 | Too Greedy - WoW and Gold, The Perfect Combination

I have to admit I haven't paid much attention to Brewfest this year, but from what I've seen already, it's basically the same quests! The only interesting feature they present is the boss in BRD who drops mounts and now apparently he drops a BoE epic too. I know World Events are supposed to be funny for everyone, but they could at least implement new stuff instead of the already known "drunk all day" behaviour and the Dark Iron Attacks (I'm actually surprised they didn't bug this year!).

They could implement something more related to the lore itself, and combine it with the World Events. Say you could actually have visions of Arthas' story (similar to an already existing quest), or other characters. Interacting in that story would be nice too. I don't find it funny to do the same quests every year with little to zero new things, and I've seen more people complaining too.

I mean, we're nearly 1 year into WotLK and all they introduced was a Pirate's Day achievement where you just have to talk to an NPC, and a Day of the Dead (or whatever it's called)? Come on, we all know it's not just about raiding anymore. If they want to make these events appealing, they can't just change the name of some of the quests.

Boubouille from MMO-Champion posted an Auction House Guide yesterday. There were lots of QQ replies to the topic I linked, stating he had just crashed every economy on every server in the world. There's also a topic at the JMTC Forums discussing it.

People will always QQ about everything, no exceptions, but I'm not discussing this now. What I found interesting in Boub's post was the fact that his intentions were based on "everyone should be able to do X, because only 0.1% of the WoW population uses these methods [or mods, or whatever]". Why would he use his website's popularity to spread info among "everyone"? Why is he also intending to give away an Inscription guide (like if I didn't have enough glyph undercutters already)? He must have some sort of "background" interest, by revealing this kind of methods most people don't even suspect about.

Still... there are ways for us old-school (who knew how to play the AH way before Boub's post) players who have already grown roots to the floors of the Orgrimmar/SW/(...) banks and Auction Houses. Think to yourselves, what will all those uneducated and gold hungry masses do? They'll surely buy the materials which the new "Gold Expert" Boubouille told them, and they'll face one out of two situation: either they'll find an empty market, because another MMO-C reader bought everything first, or they will arrive first, and buy everything, regardless of the prices. This means that they're lucky because they brainlessly bought lots of stacks of items which will give profit after all, or they'll fail miserably and will end up with even less money than they started (they'll go angry, like some people did when they took Markco's advice on Icy Dragonscales). Nonetheless, all these miracle techniques to earn gold will only be well used by a few, so it's not as much of a big deal as some may think. We all know those methods don't work on every server.

But... no, I'm not against Boubouille! Good for him if he did it just to be a "good" website admin to his users.

Although I'm not against Boub, I'm far from concerned with it. Since I'm pretty sure the herb markets may dry (even if just for a few days) when the Inscription Guide is released, I actually took a look at my bank and found hundreds of inks. So, markets drying mean less supply of inks. Brainless MMO-C readers (there should be a lot of them who will go buy stuff right away) will just find inks for sale and buy them even for insane prices, which means lots of profits for me. A few weeks later, the dust will settle anyway, because I don't believe many people will actually like to use their (limited) precious playing time just to mill herbs and post glyphs, and I'll be back to my regular routine. Am I being to confident? Perhaps, but I've learnt that underestimating the brainless WoW masses is always the way to go. They always follow another person's way of thinking, and think they've found the golden eggs for life.

Too Greedy is an ever changing blog, and therefore, old posts may be lost among the other dozens of posts in the Archive. But some of the "old" posts aren't supposed to die. They contain a lot of useful information, and you (the readers) are the ones who can evaluate the quality of a post now. Don't let valuable posts die, they are worth reading still, even if they were posted over a month ago!

There is a new tab at the top (under the banner with the green guy) called "Most Valuable Posts", and that's where you will find these important posts. The list will be updated regularly, according to user feedback and my own opinion.

In order to let you choose which posts are considered the most valuable, a poll is now up, summarising the posts which I think that may have been of your interest, according to the page views, and the content itself. However, if you think a valuable post isn't listed there, you may e-mail me right away (check the Contact tab at the top).
Or you can just comment this post stating what was your favourite post on Too Greedy, and why? :)

Last minute update: There are a few posts already listed in the "MVP" tab at the top, check them out, but keep voting, your oppinion matters.

And another week went by. There were a lot of changes because of my faction change, a new patch, a new guild, new raiding experiences...it's been "a hell of a ride". Thinking about these changes made me become even more confident for writing here, and a lot of content is now scheduled on Too Greedy.

Blog wise, whoever would like to make a link exchange, just mail me (check the Contact tab above), and we'll arrange something if your website is similar to mine. Too Greedy's been getting an average of 200 daily visits and 300+ page views, so perhaps it's a nice chance to get even bigger.

I also (still) appreciate user feedback very much, so don't hesitate to mail me any of your opinions and/or ideas!

Have a nice weekend.

What changed besides my race (and therefore, faction)? Everything. And that includes the Auction House and its markets.

Glyphs have way higher prices. The majority of them sell for over 10g, which seems like a good thing. What I don't know yet is how often they sell. If they don't sell very often, 10g each might not be a good thing after all. Next week there will be a glyph market report.

Gems are amazing sellers here. Epics are usually over 250g, and Blues are around 50g in average. They sell quite well, even out of raid end times (22.00-23.00). I've made a couple thousand gold from gems just on the first few days after faction changing!

I'm yet to discover how profittable both this markets will be long-term, but you can definitely expect some more detailed analysis soon. I haven't had much time yet to get into the weekly market flows, so can't have accurate information for now.

Guess where they tested me! Ulduar 25 with half the raid as alts, how flattering (even though I kind of understand ^^). It was actually fun, we killed FL, Razor, Ignis, XT, IC, Kolo, Crazy Cat Lady and Hodir (almost had time for Thorim), and it was a lot better than on my previous guild. Significantly less deaths, a lot more DPS, and well...both Shammies were on top of the healing meters (I was second behind the best geared Resto Shaman in the guild).

The main difference that I noticed between my old guild and this one is the raiding attitude. What I mean is, they actually care about doing their utmost in the raids, and actually are willing to replace people who aren't doing their best, or are "playing around" on Alts. This pleases me. It's a guild made of people who care about the whole social atmosphere, but aren't willing to sacrifice raid quality in exchange for it.

My first impression was definitely good, but I'm aware it's the officers and guild master's impressions that count, not mine, so I will wait a few more days and see how they evaluate what I'm made of. I'm confident they shouldn't be disappointed.

Today, I'm introducing a new way of being part of Too Greedy: Youtube. My account is called TooGreedy (http://www.youtube.com/user/TooGreedy) and I will be posting a video from times to times, if I find it nice to enhance my posts.

From now on, I may be "illustrating" my posts with videos, and that's when Youtube comes in. It's always nice to make people actually know what I'm talking about by literally showing it to them.

Now, into other business.

Bear with me with all the changes I make. Seriously. I admit I'm an always changing mind, and I'm always needing new stuff to look at. I hope all these changes aren't going "too fast" for you, if so, please do tell me. I try to keep this place as soft as possible, because as I said before, this isn't just about me.

I'm now officially an orc, which means that the Auction House in Orgrimmar in my new home.

My new guild is Left Hand Path (Thunderhorn EU), and I will be raiding better content now , like full Ulduar 25, ToC 10/25, and that includes Heroic Modes.

Bear with me on this journey which is about to start. I will start making money on a new faction, so it's a new challenge. I hope these markets are as juicy as the ones on the Alliance :)

You may be wondering if I brought items with me for selling on the Horde. Well, only some cats from the Cat Lady near SW, and Moths from Exodar. The rest will be up to my JC and Inscription. Might have not been very wise choices, but hey, I don't need more stuff to make money.

Blog wise, from now on, it will all be written from a Horde point of view.

And last but not least, there will be a new logo with a new face on it (with more green ^^).

Out of money? Go farm, if you're not willing to spend time at the AH, or working with your professions. Farming can be relaxing. You can treat the mobs as dummies who you can hit to test your DPS...but it's a dummy with loot! If you farm often enough, you can get rich too.

Are you bored? Go farm! You may think farming is boring, but if you do it as a hobby instead of a daily chore, it gets funny. You can even do it while watching TV, or listening to the radio.

Basically, any status you acquire while playing this game can be "cleansed" by going farming.

So, go farm!

Here's a list of nice places to farm stuff:

Storm Peaks: Here, you can farm elemental stuff (crystallized X), Iceweb Spider Silk, ...
Sholazar Basin: Icy Dragonscales, Chilled Meat, ...
Borean Tundra: Rhino Meat, ...
Howling Fjord: Shoveltusk Flanks, Icy Dragonscales, ...

These are just a few from the top of my head, but you can be sure they're all profittable (on most servers, because there are exceptions).

From now on, Sunday posts are not guaranteed to happen, depending on a few things (explained on the next paragraph), and because of the fact that on Sundays, blog attendances are very low.

So, if I have something important to say related to the blog, it will be posted on Sundays. If not, Sundays may not have any scheduled post as usual at 6:00 AM GMT. I hope you all understand this.

Saturday posts are now changed also (as you may have noticed already), and may become similar to the now "old Sunday posts". Explanation is already on the bottom of the blog page. For those who haven't noticed yet:

"Saturday and Sunday posts are usually related to the blog itself, or any other topic which may not be about my game play experience."

This means that weekend posts are kind of more relaxed, and may bring some funny nonsense attached :)

Besides all this, the posts from Monday through Friday remain unchanged.

Have a nice Sunday! :)

First of all, I know the post title is very original, please you don't have to compliment me for it.

Saturday (pronounced /ˈsætərdeɪ/ in the US or /ˈsætədɪ/ ( listen) in England ) is the day of the week between Friday and Sunday. Saturday is considered either the sixth or seventh day of the week.

from Wikipedia

After this piece of very important (and not useless nor obvious) information, I am introducing a new topic to the blog. It's called "On the opposite side". I'll explain. I am considering a faction change (haven't made a final decision yet, but maybe Verde is becoming an orc!), and maybe I can take advantage of the differences. I will make a few posts regarding this. I will compare the prices on both sides, and bring the right items with me in the transfer.

Have you tried a faction change yet? Did you take advantage of it to make gold? Share your thoughts too! :)

There are lots of opportunities that show up throughout life. Some are like doors, which you choose to leave open or not; some are like trains, meaning you only have one chance to catch it. There's always a time when you have to look at a situation and choose your path. This may be either a good or bad decision, but it's not just about luck. There are ways of knowing which option is more likely to be a good one, and that possibility is often inside us. All we need to reveal it is some sort of a motivation, something that acts as a fuel to our brains (which tend to be lazy, thus the need to wake them up with this motivation).

Take the professions in WoW as an example. You obviously have no way to know what Blizzard will implement, but you can know what's the potential of each profession in the present. If you're well-informed about them, you'll know you can make higher profits by combining a few professions than with just one of them. If you're in a "frozen" state, unsure if you should or should not take Inscription, Jewelcrafting, or whatever, don't hesitate in taking them. Cataclysm is for sure a year away. Isn't a year more than enough to take as much as you can from a profession? You'll make plenty of gold until then, and if you regret of it by the time the expansion comes, you can always walk back, and choose another door. It's not a train. Changing professions is just a click away.

Now, let's take the example of Titanium Ore pre-3.2. It was a train. You either took all your luggage in it, spending loads on Titanium, expecting a trip to Wonderland (which is what happened), or you were too scared to go on a train trip, didn't get on it, and you'll never be able to get on it again. Deep inside, you knew there was potential on Titanium, but you were afraid to take the risk. That's where luck comes in. Luck to have the right hunch at the right time. Some time before 3.2 I went "Hey, what the heck! I can still prospect it all if it doesn't pull off as I want!" and bought a lot of Titanium. I had that hunch and was lucky for it to work nicely. The fuel to my brains was a plan B (it's always good to have one). You can't really know beforehand if all this betting pays off, but you can do your best to minimise damage to you if it doesn't go as you expect.

With these examples, I want to tell you that there are opportunities you should evaluate as either a door or a train in this game. If it's a door, you can go back and forth if you want. If it's a train, you must decide if you want to take the risk, but remember it's not just about luck. You can have something to say on it.

Day Two

On Day 2, there were slight changes. My ink cost was significantly reduced due to the fact that my Snowfall Inks sold, therefore my net profit rose...a lot.

The day started with the posting of another 500 glyphs, my second batch. I have to admit that I cancelled-undercut a bit more than I did on Day 1, and perhaps that's why I got better results too, along with the lower ink cost.

Summarising day 2, I can say I tried a little harder and it paid off.

Results

The results were certainly positive. At the end of day 2, here's the net profit:

(Bear in mind that this is day 1 and day 2 combined. The result of day 1 was 2,041g. Therefore, the result of day 2 was 3,951g.)

Now, let's analyze what I did during these 2 days, and how you can do it too.

You must be willing to spend 1-2 hours before actually posting the glyphs. Buy herbs for milling. If there are no herbs at the AH for good prices, just buy the inks. They're usually not very expensive. Use Quick Auctions, always. Go to the AH, type /qa summary and scan data for Glyphs. Anything that sells above your threshold must be crafted. Then, it's just a matter of posting the glyphs, and cancelling-reposting whenever you get the time among your other activities. There's no need to be an AH camper. If you follow these steps (anyone can do them, and you don't need to play 24/7, like I mentioned before), you're on your way to success. On the other hand, if you follow these steps on my server, I may not be too happy about it!

( /point Nectarine )

Just kidding...!

Now, some answers to the "Part 1" post comments:

Out of interest, how do you have your groups set up in QA?

by Sarainy (hey, free link love ^^)

I would tell you, but to be honest, my competition would love to know too. But it's not really important for me to mention my specific configurations anyway. I'll explain how you should config your own. Basically, your threshold (the minimum price you sell your glyphs for) should be a bit higher than your ink cost (this topic at JMTC should help), say 1g or so above your ink cost. The undercut value is up to you, but usually a few copper/silver is okay, and that's what everyone uses (except Goblins). The fallback value should be high, but shouldn't seem like an outrage. Usually 35-45g is the way to go, but you may find yourself pricing it differently depending on what people on your server are willing to pay (some are willing to pay more than those values; some would think they're way too high), which you will only find out after you try several different prices. About the auction time, 12 hours is what I use (and I guess everyone else does too, because of all the undercutting that happens on this market).

Can't wait for day 2!!! Yesterday I just start leveling my Inscription and ended with 100 auctions (and I'm not lvl 200 skill yet!!).

by Raddik

Not bad. Keep it going, and you'll be amazed on how many auctions you post when you've got most or all the glyph recipes ;)

The glyph madness has begun.
Just like I mentioned 2 days ago, the goal is to have the best profit possible selling glyphs during a couple of days. This is the complete report of how I did the whole thing. It will be divided into days (Day 1 and Day 2).

Day One

I had roughly 650-700 inks stored in my bank, and started crafting glyphs, according to what QA Summary told me.
After this kind of long process, here are my bags:

That's every kind of glyph that sells over my threshold. And I was crazy enough to manage glyphs from all classes only on one toon!

After posting, the total number was:

...

532 glyph auctions, out the 3984 total, means 13,35% of all the glyph auctions are mine. It might not seem much (percentage wise), but these 13% are the ones 90+ % of people buy, because they are the cheapest almost all day.

At the end of Day One:

2,041 gold in one day is just the beginning. Stay tuned for the report of Day Two. You haven't seen anything yet. It gets even crazier.

I never had a slice of bread,
Particularly large and wide,
That did not fall upon the floor,
And always on the buttered side.

You must be wondering if I've gone insane, because this verse doesn't seem to be related to WoW. But if you think of it, Murphy's Law does apply in this game. How? Just think of all those days when your guild just can't down a boss because of a bug. Or because of disconnects. Or because of any other possible reason. If any of these happens on any of the raids I attend, I just say to myself "Anything that can go wrong, will you go wrong". It doesn't change anything, but it does de-frustrate me a bit. Why? Because that's just the way it is, even in real life. Those days when you mustn't be late for something are the days you're most likely to be late. You're focusing so much on the "I must not be late" idea that you neglect the whole process required to not be late, and there you go, Murphy's Law applies.

Think of this as a way to ease your frustrations. If it can go wrong, it will, and there's often nothing we can do about it. You can't expect that things always go right. It will (more often that you probably expect) go wrong, sooner or later.

After spending nearly 10,000 gold on some stuff (epic flying skill, and other minor spendings to enhance my gear and level Tailoring and Enchanting on my mage), I got down to 50k and kind of lost some motivation.
But now, I decided I want to go big on my server. Now that I know every glyph recipe, it's gonna be huge. And by huge, I mean having a huge presence in the glyph market, on nearly every glyph available. The goal? For now, getting over 100k is the short-term goal. A couple of days ago, I was sitting on 55k total in my bags, and I re-remembered that money makes money. And, of course, a lot of money makes a lot of money, so perhaps I'm not too far away from 100k, and even the gold cap, time wise.

This week, maybe tomorrow or the day after, I'll post about this experiment. I will be aiming for high daily profits, and considering I can make 1k by just dropping "a few" glyphs at the AH, I certainly can achieve a lot of more if I really focus on it.

The objectives will be: getting the lowest ink cost possible, selling the glyphs for the highest amount possible (I won't go goblin on this) through moderate undercutting and reposting in the afternoon/at night.

It will be a series of posts throughout two days, that will cover those 2 days of business, and I'll analyze what did, and what did not work, and I'll show how much money I made. You may be saying "that's only for hardcore AH players", but you're wrong. It's possible, if you're greedy enough. :)

Will I achieve what I want? Only time will tell...stick around and you'll see.

I was pleasantly surprised earlier this week, when Too Greedy's daily visits doubled, and the number of subscribers rose a lot (it's now over 100). I'm glad more people are enjoying the blog. Even though I'm not having a lot of feedback, the few people who messaged me had good things to say. Keep spreading the word!

This week was also filled with upgrades to Too Greedy, which included a new graphic layout, and other few changes in the organisation of stuff. What do you think of them, has it changed for better or for worse? Got any suggestion?

Have a nice Sunday everyone!

By the way, if you're not yet subscribed, you can do it by clicking the big button on the right (it's brand new!).
By subscribing you make sure you're notified everytime there's new content on Too Greedy; that way, you can keep in touch easily.

If you wish to e-mail me, check the Contact tab at the top. I'll reply as soon as possible. I accept reader submitted content. If you want to share your money making experiences, or anything you deem fit to the blog, send it to me and I'll post it. Just don't forget to mention your name and server so I can give credit. This blog can be about the readers too, not just about me ;)

Raid night.
Crusader's Coliseum 10 man.
All bosses down except Anub'arak.
Everyone full of confidence for the raid.
All set, we talk to the guy there to make the floor collapse, nothing happens, and he disappears.

We didn't quit. After about 30-40 minutes the NPC reappeared, we engaged Anub'arak, and one-shot him! It was the first time we ever one-shotted a boss we had never tried before. I was also happy because I was #1 on healing again, but I was healing the MT, so it should be no big deal, I hope. Still, it's a huge difference against other healers (numbers 2 and 3).

1 day later (after the reset), we went to Crusader's Coliseum 10 again, and cleared the whole place in 1 hour and a few minutes!

The guild had 2 teams clearing the place that night, and after the other team was done too, we joined both groups together, got a few more members who were bored with the fact they didn't get a spot in the raids, and attempted the 25-man version, with 24 people. Everyone pulled their weight (to compensate the fact that some people are still a bit undergeared for it), and we downed Northrend Beasts.

Loot wise, I got 3 new items just in these couple of days. Really nice upgrades to help me boost my performances even more:

[Helmet of the Crypt Lord] dropped from Anub'arak in ToC 10.
It's now fully gemmed with the best: Insightful Earthsiege Diamond, Quick King's Amber, and enchanted with Arcanum of Burning Mysteries.

[Belt of the Ice Burrower] dropped from Northrend Beasts in ToC 25.
Gemmed with Energized Eye of Zul, and a Quick Dragon's Eye on the extra socket provided by a belt buckle.

[Nobundo's Handguards of Conquest], acquired by exchanging 30 Emblems of Triumph at the Emblem Gear Vendor.
Gemmed with a Quick King's Amber, and enchanted with +28 Spell Power, and it also allowed to get the "Set Bonus (2)", which raises my Riptide heals by 20%.

(Sorry about the orange links, they're not Legendary. Don't know how to change the HTML for blue/purple links.)

My current stats are as shown (with Water Shield and Earthliving). They're really balanced at the moment. SP, MP5, and Haste seem to be right where I want them for now (even though I'm still aiming for more Haste, to reduce my cast times slightly more).

Crusader's Coliseum 10 is now on farm, and from now on, we're gearing ourselves up in there, until Icecrown Citadel. We will slowly start doing Heroic modes too, we're on fire! Wish us luck! :)

So, what was the general reaction to the new Cataclysm features? Myself, I love Worgens, thought Goblins weren't right for the Horde at first, but changed my mind, etc. But overall, I got this feeling of "I must play it!". Lots of people say they will come back to WoW when Cataclysm arrives, and of course, they share the same feeling as me. So, why do we get so excited with new features which are still far away, and not as much by stuff like the Crusader's Coliseum, or Icecrown Citadel?

Do we unconsciously have a need for "fresh starts", even though, it's not really a fresh start, but you get "fresh" raids and other content that make you feel like starting gathering stuff again, like new gear tiers, etc?
Perhaps, and that's all we need to keep paying for this game. People whine a lot about this new expansion, but they will play it for sure, like they did with BC and WotLK, because they're addicts...well, in a certain way, we all are!

I found this video that kind of represents a lot of people's reactions, parody style:

"Once an addict, always an addict" :)

Now that I've found out that my own competitors read my blog, I started thinking. Will they use it against me? You see, they can know nearly everything I'm doing just by alt-tabbing out, and checking Too Greedy, and perhaps that's something I don't want? Bah, I'll live through it. I won't stop making gold, and it may aswell work the way around, and maybe I'll hint someone to do something that I want? (Oh, ethics!)

Hey, I'm all okay with making new friends, but business is business, and I'm not acting friendly to someone who's actually using my info against me. On the other hand, if you're willing to have a nice discussion, just message me on one of my characters (Blackwolf, Tugamage, or Verde), and I'll surely reply.

So, competitors: read my blog, do it. It's something that doesn't bother me, and it's certainly something interesting to see, specially if you comment posts and behave nicely here. There's no need to become enemies :)

This post follows yesterday's post regarding my sales. The auctions I posted are now over; many sold, many expired without a single bid...

After some undercutting and cancelling-reposting, here are the results:

104 auctions sold total.

First batch of 50:

...

Second batch of 50:

...

And the last 4:

Total:

It was a great day for a salesman who's just come back to his game at the AH. 2,570 gold per day means 17,990g a week! Nice, a mammoth a week! Nah, I'm too greedy to buy a mammoth for now. Perhaps when I reach the gold cap.

What do you think of this day of sales? Good? Could be higher...? Of course it could. Next sales report: maybe next week! And here's a little something from what I'm cooking:

Yep, over 430 items - Glyphs and gems!

(and 430 is not the highest number yet!)

So, now I'm slowly getting more time to play and from now on, I'll start being part of the glyph market more often. I also got some gems crafted for this, but this is more of a bonus; it's not a market I can say I know deeply (for now).

Multiply the number of items on the picture by 2, and that's the amount I posted. 250-300 auctions up at a given time, which I kept cancelling-reposting during some time. Competitors often get bored of this and I stay on top for a few hours. Of course I prefer selling the glyphs that cost more than 10-20g, but anything above 4g (my threshold) is fine; after all, it's profit.

Glyphs are always selling, day or night. Every hour, glyphs sell, even at late night (except for maintenance days ^^); it's incredible.

Can't say the same about gems. I mean, I sell one or two during the day, but the real gem selling Christmas is at around 22.00-23.00 PM, the time when raids end and people hurry to the AH and gem themselves up.

So, what will I do to attempt getting a spot in the gem market wonders?

I'll prospect some leftover stacks from the 3.2 rush, which are still in my Guild Bank.

After that, I'll cut all the gems (both rare and epic) that I get, and list them with a cap of 2. Let's wait and see how that works.

By the time I'm writing this, everything's posted. Keep in mind this is just a partial selling day, as I didn't really get going full throttle as a salesman.

The final results? Check them out, in tomorrow's post!

Too Greedy is now upgraded; it's hopefully better in general now. Here are the changes I implemented:

Totally new template, with simple colours (a white/blue mix) to ease reading.
New logo, with higher graphic quality (and you can see Verde's shiny eyes now).
Added a bar at the top, under the logo, with links to relevant information regarding the blog
Sidebar is roughly the same. The major difference is the "Subscribe" button, which is now harder to find :)

Drop a comment on what you think about the changes, feedback means a lot to me. Also feel free to drop any suggestions!

Thanks! And sorry if you were finding weird stuff while I was doing the updates.

Note to feed readers: Today's post is "To be, or not to be (too) greedy".

I'm currently applying some changes to the blog, both graphic and content wise, so it's more organized and perhaps more good-looking. I will post again when it's finished. Until then, sorry if you find something messy, I'm working on it.

When I say I'm greedy, I don't mean obsessively greedy. I mean that I find it hard to spend money on stuff that is either only visual (mounts, for instance), or will eventually get replaced in short term. What I am obsessed about, so to speak, is being the best (I have already mentioned it before).

So, am I really too greedy? Sometimes, yes. I didn't sell a lot of my stockpiled Titanium for 3.2, because I wanted gems for myself, and still got a lot of money out of the bulk I sold. Of course I would have made a lot of more if I had sold all stacks, but I didn't want to. I resisted being momentarily greedy, and actually thought about the near future. I didn't want to be sorry for not having proper gem recipes. I rather make less money from auctions, and do more effective healing in raids. If I had sold all my Titanium, I would still have to buy stuff from the AH to improve myself, so glad I didn't do it.

I look at it like this: being greedy is good sometimes, because you'll probably never be a successful business person if you aren't, but not resisting some of those sudden desires of quick money is not rational. Always trying to predict what will happen in the long run is a good thing, and gaining something today which you will spend tomorrow, is definitely what I called being obsessively greedy, or let's say it, "being too greedy". After all, you'll just end up the same way, but will waste more time.

So, to be or not to be (too) greedy?
"Be greedy, but don't let greediness control you" is my answer.

Every day, the "OMG I can't make gold!" section at the JMTC Forums gets new topics. There's always someone struggling to make gold, and there's always someone willing to help. I do not have a bad impression about these people (who ask for help) at all, because they try. They understand that if they can't make it themselves, they have to look for higher knowledge in order to be able to do it themselves; they're not like those people that I mentioned in a post a few days ago.
There's a form that people use to show the tools they got to make gold, and the community teaches them ways to be successful based on their professions and personal preferences (farming, using the Auction House, etc). Absolutely no one is ignored.

No one knows everything, and not being afraid to ask is a good thing if you want to become better at what you do. I have to confess that even by reading other users' help to new members, I've learnt a few things I didn't know before! And I'm sure many of you did, too!

So, to you all who are part of the JMTC Forum, thank you for asking for help, thank you for sharing what goes in your mind, and thank you for being such a good community! And thank you to Markco, of course, for creating the whole place! And if you haven't already, pay a visit to the JMTC Forums someday. You won't regret it.

Also, more stuff that happened this week:

Thank you to WoWenomics, for mentioning Too Greedy on their post on Tuesday, and adding a link to their sidebar.
Too Greedy was accepted at Blogged.com, with a review rating of: 7.8

As you can see, it was an amazing week, looking forward for more good moments like this.

Have a nice Sunday! :)

Some peeps from my guild decided to attempt that really nice way of killing Sartharion with 3 Drakes, using 1 Tank, 1 Healer, and 8 DPS - the Zerg Tactic. The result:

Have you ever tried this way of killing Sartharion? Was it easy? :)

Now, 10 people in the guild have the title "Of the Nightfall". This is a great achievement, and we should rise in the guild ranking of our server (oddly, we only had Sarth+1 on farm). I hope this is somehow the motivation we need to keep pushing through Ulduar and eventually down Yogg-Saron (and do a few hard modes) before ICC. Or am I being too confident?

Now, a small gold tip you might find useful:

If you've recently started reselling stuff, I found that even though you should resell stuff that people use every day for their needs (Cloth, Enchanting mats, Ores, Metal Bars, Herbs...), you should not focus on the lowest level items. For example, Linen Cloth is no where near Wool Cloth in prices. Wool Cloth is usually more expensive, and Linen usually doesn't allow you good profit margins, thus not being worth reselling.
Also, the Enchanting trainers/vendors usually have a couple of Strange Dusts and/or Lesser Magic Essences selling for low prices (usually much lower than the AH price). You can resell those a lot more than what you bought them for.

Just like in real life, people should have pride in what they do. When we do something, we should focus on doing it right, and not do it just because we have to. Doing your job without even caring for it just shows how much of a "slacker" you are. If you don't care about doing your best, and everything you only care about is your pay check, you obviously think the same way when you're playing World of Warcraft.

If you're a raider, you must do your best, both before, during, and after raids.

Before the raids, you should make sure your gear is enchanted with the best available enchants for your role, you should be properly gemmed, you should have potions, flasks, elixirs, buff-food, and every sort of consumables to maximise your presence there. Those few extra stats like AP, SP, MP5 (etc.) you will get may not sound like much, but if everyone in the raid has those extra stats, you'll most likely progress easier.
During raids, you should pay attention during the encounters, you should know your spell rotations (which must be studied deeply before the raids, obviously), and you mustn't stand in the fire. Knowing tactics is a must.
After raids, you should enchant/gem any new gear you got, and also reflect on what happened during the raid. Did you do the best you could? Did others do the best they could? Any raid tracking tools are helpful for this. Numbers actually say a lot about someone.

I'm proud to be a good healer. I'm not cocky; I know my skills, and care a lot about my performances. When I compare myself to other healers, I often am on top of the effective heals (I never out heal a Priest, though), and got one of the lowest overhealing. When compared to other shamans, my Earth Shield often healed a lot more than others' (because I focus on ALWAYS keeping it up), I had more Critical heals (which also cause Ancestral Healing), and my Riptide ticked more often and for higher amounts (Riptide also causes Tidal Waves, which enhances both my HW and LHW. I choose which one to use according to the situation, of course). No special skills required really. To be good at it, I'm properly enchanted, gemmed and flasked, everytime. I'm always looking to learn more about my class, and there's always room for improving, either rotation or stats wise.

It's always about motivation; you don't need to be one of those obsessed gamers (who play 24/7) in order to show your skills as a player in WoW. However, you need to keep in mind that you can't achieve success on your own, so help others helping you (considering you're in a guild with good players), by doing it right. And does it feel good when you put out a hell of a performance!

Raiding without doing your best is irrational, because that means you're leeching skilled people, and not allowing them to progress, just because you expect easy purples. Why would you play this game after all then, if all you want is gear to show off to people you don't even know and don't care about?

This is the first experiment I post on Too Greedy. It's a new topic I'll bring up from time to time. The goal is to give evidence that something is/isn't possible. This is the first of some new topics I'm bringing up in the (near) future. Enjoy :)

Making money at low levels?

It is possible. Starting areas are filled with beasts that drop Meat, Eggs, and other "animal things". You can make a lot of money by selling these at the AH. The buyers are usually people who are leveling professions. But this is not the only way.

Mining and Herbalism, for example, are amazing professions for this. While doing the low level quests, you can mine dozens of ores and gather loads of herbs. Turning the ores into bars, and selling them, along with the herbs, is a great source of income if you're looking for starter cash, and it should be more than enough to start doing funny stuff at the AH.

I'm now leveling a warlock for such purpose, and I'm gathering all sorts of materials; herbs, ores (Mining and Herbalism are my two professions), cloth, meats, etc.

After some days, I'm now level 14, and have done my first postings at the AH, like the following screenshot shows (these are just 3 of the many pages - they were roughly 100 total auctions):

These materials were farmed during my Elwynn Forest/Westfall questing. The results of the these few days gathering and selling while leveling are:

These are only 2 pictures; I could've taken a lot more, but it would take a lot of space to show all of them, and it's not really necessary. You can see I sold all my Copper Bars, some Boar Ribs for 50s each, a few herbs...all this in a couple of days. My bags after the first business adventure on this character:

Note that I still got more herbs, feathers, meat, eggs, and other random stuff to sell. I didn't sell them all at the same time.

Conclusion

As you can see, you can make plenty of money before level 15 while just enjoying the quests, and gathering stuff meanwhile. It may not seem much money, but it's a start, and it's definitely not bad for a toon of such level. The gold you acquire also increases as you level, because items become more valuable, either because they're just higher level, or because sometimes there's very low supply for them (people often vendor them, don't be such a silly person). So, making money at low levels? I did it, so it IS possible.

We're a few weeks into 3.2 now, and my guild hasn't even cleared Ulduar 10 or 25 normal modes (we've downed 7 bosses on 25, and 10 bosses on 10 so far), but we've downed 2 bosses in Trial of the Crusader 10. My point is, are we far behind when compared to the majority of other guilds? According to WoW-Heroes, we're #47 on our server, when it comes to 25 man progress. On 10 mans, we're on #62. We're not hardcore raiders, but we do take raids seriously when we do them. Still, I have to admit some people on my guild may not have enough skills for it.

So, how many of you are actually more or less at the same place as me, with Ulduar half/three quarters cleared? What concerns me is that we're getting closer to 3.3, and I had the hope that I would have Ulduar on farm by the time it launched, and progress has been slow. On the other hand, we kept doing Naxxramas 25 after Ulduar came out, and it should happen again with Ulduar and Icecrown Citadel, so it might not be such a big deal.

Gevlon (at Greedy Goblin) explained why some "Guilds s(t)uck". He states that people are afraid to /gquit. Based on his "Skill > Gear" theory, it makes sense. People should find other players who are similarly skilled, if they want to achieve high goals. The thing is, and I'm speaking for myself, I have the skills, but I don't have the time to play on high-end guilds, who are clearing Hard Modes. They usually require a minimum attendance, often for far more than 3 hours a day, which I can't deliver. Not everyone has the money nor the time to even buy places in "better" guilds (even though I could use my money for it). The so called "casuals" can clear hard modes if they have the skills, but there aren't many guilds where you can find skilled casuals at all. So, what options does such a player have? He can: join an "average" raiding guild, which progresses slowly, and doesn't demand an every day attendance, or he can...? Stop playing MMOs?

Anyway, all I want is to have seen everything in all raids before Cataclysm. I'll be happy if I'm able to clear Icecrown in normal modes. Clearing hard modes would be amazing, but perhaps a player like me isn't suited to do it...? I still get to see content like people in "better" guilds, the difference is that their activities require better gear, and a RL possibility I currently don't have.

I had an awesome time with a GM who talked with me today, see the conversation here.

He was indeed a very nice guy! :)

Note for feed readers: This is not today's scheduled post. Today's post is "Business results today".

Today's results from selling gems and glyphs, and also a couple of stacks of Titanium Ore, but they were posted accidentally (lol):

Whoever is still reluctant to believe these 2 professions are profittable, the proof you're wrong is right before your eyes. And this was low profitting, because I only posted a few gems and glyphs!

Inscription isn't hard to level up and you get your money back as you do it (I made a guide for scribes a few days ago). JC is quite expensive to level up, but after you get there, it's an endless source of money. There are people re-glyphing and re-gemming every day, it's crazy.

If you're not sure if you should level these professions, I hope you get the motivation you need to do it with these screenshots ;)

Should I have sold all my Titanium Ores long ago? Perhaps, but I was too greedy...

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