Making money in BC: Mine!
by Eliah Hecht 
Jul 11th 2007 at 7:45PM
GeneriKB, whose money-making guide from the official Professions forums I read with interest back in the days before I had a single level 60, is back again for a guide for this brave new world (of Warcraft). Unlike his previous three-stage philosophy (two gathering profs to 40, switch to one gathering and one crafting until 60, and then switch to two crafting), the recommend procedure in volume 3 of GeneriKB's "Guide to MoneyMaking" can be summed up on one point:- Mine
Well, there's one thing I've found that makes more, actually: playing the auction house. That is to say, finding an item that's priced under the market rate, buying it all out, and relisting it at market rate or slightly above. This usually yields a very high amount of gold per hour, but you need a certain amount of starting capital, and there is some risk involved (the going rate for your item may not be what you thought it was). Furthermore, I am not an economist, but I suspect that this practice would end up raising the price of various things over time, which may not be a desired effect. But anyway, playing the AH may turn out to be more efficient than mining. What do you think?
Filed under: Economy, Guides, Making money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Argent Jul 11th 2007 7:53PM
i can kinda see the 200g thing.
stacks of adamantite ore (you don't want to process it into bars -- people mostly buy it to prospect for gems) sell for 20g a stack on my server. getting 100 ore or so doesn't seem very far fetched, really. i usually rack up 40-60 a day just doing the daily quests in terokkar, SMV and BEM.
primal water is about 25g. if i hit all the pure water spawnpoints you can easily rack up 3-4 primal waters an hour.
even if you only hit about 100g an hour, it's a still a lucrative camp, imo.
Pzychotix Jul 11th 2007 8:11PM
Playing the AH:
Items such as primals that are always high in demand should be the ones you should always look at. Take a couple weeks and document the average price of items. Get a feel for how much an item should sell at, and at what price people will start to cringe at.
During this time, you'll notice that item prices will cycle up and down. Players will always keep pricing their new items below the current lowest, making the prices constantly fall. But at some point, people are going to notice and gobble all the items like candy. Due to zero supply, prices shoot straight back up.
When you finally get a feel for your server's market economy, you can figure out when to grab all these items, and then get a nice 5-10g turnover on each item since you control the supply.
HOWEVER. Playing the AH requires one thing: A populated server.
If you happen to be on a low populated server (like I am), your profits will be hindered majorly by the fact that, simply, the demand for items isn't high enough. There aren't enough people constantly wanting your items, nor will there be enough players to lower the prices and supply you with gobs of cheap items.
Really, items you should avoid trying for are equipment items. Instances and quest items have really hampered on the value of BoE items, and unless you KNOW the item is worth ten times more, don't try to get a deal out of it. More often than not you'll be spending more time advertising it or more money constantly putting it on the AH than it is worth.
Geoff Jul 11th 2007 8:30PM
Mining is a great money maker. Once I realised I should stop smelting the stuff the money started rolling in. All my alts now mine regardless of their other profession. Except for my tailor who is a herbalist but I'm seriously considering ditching that for mining even though he only just got to the point where he's picking herbs that will sell. The money that can be made from even copper ore is crazy. 1g a stack for something a level 1 character can collect in an hour???
Deus Mortus Jul 11th 2007 8:37PM
I've been playing the AH since day 1 (well alright, maybe more like day 14, but you get the idea) and I make about 5k a day without trying and have almost 250k gold, too be honest, the only reason why I keep doing it, because it's damn fun and it's nice to know that you're the servers largest moneysink.
I have a talk with a gm about 1 time per 2 weeks, because he thinks I'm goldfarmer/buyer, then when I tell him to talk to one of his colleagues who have talked to me before, they're usually very cool about it. Reactions range from Scrooge McDuck impressions to allegations of being Bill Gates in disguise xD
Paul Jul 11th 2007 8:45PM
2 has it pretty much exactly right. I need to look into primals, etc but my highest character is a 48 with >275 enchanting, so i search the AH for cheap armor, DE and then sell the mats.
I make on average a 50% profit on what i buy, which isn't crazy, but churns out money every day. Most items i break even on when you include AH cuts, but the profit comes from the random Large Prismatic Shard that i get from a high level green, or the odd times DEing something yields like 5 Arcane Dust at once.
And it's convenient just sitting in the city when i don't have the time to fly somewhere, farm, and fly back.
Tiforix Jul 11th 2007 9:33PM
Multiple characters FTW :)
I have two characters that transmute Primal Earth to Primal Water every day. One of them is a transmute specialist, and I've seen a few extra procs. That activity alone yields ~40g per day for less than 5 minutes of effort.
I have a third character with 375 Jewelcrafting, and he can rake in a ton of cash just from prospecting Adamantite Ore. He doesn't even have to mine it himself.
Since the above activities take so little time, I have plenty of time to do daily quests with both of my 70's. I've already bought 300 riding skill x2, and I have plenty of gold left over. :)
klink-o Jul 11th 2007 9:47PM
This is how I make all my money. Nagrand really is the best place to mine imo. There are a ton of veins and the mobs are low enough that they rarely aggro. A few things in his guide I disagree with, though. The first is smelting fel iron. It's worth twice as much unsmelted, at least on my server. It's the same with pretty much all the metals, Outlands or otherwise. And vendering the green gems, are you crazy? Save them up into stacks of 20 and sell em in bulk, or better yet get a chump (aka friend) jewelcrafter to cut em for free then sell em. Another idea, if you have the primals as well which you should from mining, is to get them transmuted into one of the raw meta gems and sell it. Also, I try and keep at least one of each type of blue gem in my bank at all times so I can cheaply and easily gem any new gear I get. Plus, if I see someone wanting to buy one in trade because there are none on the auction house I can usually get away with marking the price way up.
Incendo Jul 11th 2007 11:36PM
Used to love playing the AH. I literally controlled the enchanting mats market on the Alliance side of Dark Iron for months.
Tobiathin Jul 11th 2007 11:48PM
Congrats WoW Insider,
I'm pretty sure you just broke WoW.
(Economy wise ofcourse)
1Adam12 Jul 11th 2007 11:59PM
(9) No this won't break WoW... it just makes it harder for us miners to do what we have been doing all along!!!
But my Netherwing Drake says I beat you to the node!
Jack Kelly Jul 12th 2007 3:41PM
It's gotten so bad on my realm that it's nearly impossible to farm Nagrand at all. Every single node is camped now. And I mean camped.
People will literally stake their claim on one of the caves and sit there clearing it out of mobs just waiting for the nodes to respawn. It's become pointless to fly around to look for more because there's several others doing the same thing.
Tekkub Jul 12th 2007 3:10AM
Playing the AH is highly dependent on your server's population. I've pulled in about 1000g over 2 weeks on my server, from both reselling and DE. I don't, however, completely buyout items and relist them at inflated rates. I might be able to milk more from that, but it's a higher risk and, frankly, I'm more that happy with the return I'm getting right now. Nothing like earning money in WoW while I'm earning money in the real world at the same time.
Ammon Lauritzen Jul 12th 2007 4:48AM
And this is news how? :)
Next you'll be telling us that orcs are green... :P
bsm0f0 Jul 12th 2007 8:35AM
"Also, ore is pretty valuable because it feeds three professions -- mining, engineering, and jewelcrafting."
Uhm ... last I checked, blacksmithing used ore. Was that in the patch notes?? Oh thats right, you need stacks of noobs for BS ... you can get them farming authors in the wowinsider zone.
You guys/girls amaze me with the depth of your research. If I didn't gain anything by reading comments here (often times just a laugh) I'd never come here.
@2.
Thanks for making the post worthwhile =D
styopa Jul 12th 2007 8:47AM
Frankly, I think this is just an example of how poorly Blizzard has planned their mats/crafting systems. It was bad enough before, when Blacksmithing and Engineering both required minerals. Fine, some stuff has to be 'rarer' than others, although I'd argue that the benefits one got from either of these were not nearly commensurate with the 2x increase in demand (meaning both higher prices in the AH *and* harder-to-find veins).
But now? Now they've added JEWELCRAFTING which burns through a prodigious amount of minerals - take your average lvl 60 JC item, and calculate how many ore it would take to prospect for the mats - so now we have 3 professions all depending on one source of raw materials. Then look how people are SWIMMING in Netherweave (I know two people that have bank alts full of nothing BUT stacks of them) - sorry, that's not a carefully crafted economic system, that's just stupid. (And FYI, I'm an engineer which means I'm somewhat off the hook, since Blizzard hasn't seen fit to give us any engame schematics worth crap, so I don't HAVE anything worth building...)
So yes, it's hugely profitable for the miners (and all my alts have been miners for a while now) but seriously, that's just piss-poor design.
Sean Jul 12th 2007 8:48AM
OMG, it's a stack of Australian $1 coins!
ben1778 Jul 12th 2007 9:44AM
Playing the AH on my server yields far more cash per day/hour than mining anywhere.
Pingmeister Jul 12th 2007 11:37AM
I have done a little AH playing in the past and it is a LOT of work. Perhaps if you have a passion for economics and such it may seem fun, but for me it was drudgery.
Now I just check the lowest price and put my items up there for a little cheaper.
BrianD Jul 12th 2007 11:57AM
@13 You wrote:
"13. "Also, ore is pretty valuable because it feeds three professions -- mining, engineering, and jewelcrafting."
Uhm ... last I checked, blacksmithing used ore. Was that in the patch notes?? Oh thats right, you need stacks of noobs for BS ... you can get them farming authors in the wowinsider zone.
You guys/girls amaze me with the depth of your research. If I didn't gain anything by reading comments here (often times just a laugh) I'd never come here.
@2.
Thanks for making the post worthwhile =D"
You are wrong. Blacksmithing uses bars of metal, which are smelted from ore using the MINING skill. You are also rude and high-handed. Both aspects seem just a little noobish to me. Maybe you should do some research before commenting? Just a thought...
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock Jul 12th 2007 1:44PM
It's partially a factor of how much time you have.
I've spent a lot of time playing the AH, because it's something I enjoy. Generally, if you have half an hour to an hour a day to make money in WoW, AH trading is both faster and more fun than grinding gathering professions (if, as people above note, you find sales and economics to be fun. I do). However, there's a ceiling on how much time you can spend on it - more than about 2-3 hours a day, I'd guess, and your gold/hour goes right down.
Oh, yeah - and if you're AH trading, disenchanting is the killer profession. It's the only trade where you can transform something into something totally different, valuable, and impossible to get any other way, unlimited times a day.