Insider Trader: Inscription and glyphs in Cataclysm
by Basil Berntsen 
Sep 27th 2010 at 5:00PM
Glyphs and inscription are getting a serious overhaul in Cataclysm. I read an excellent write-up of the new system on my friend Kraklin's blog and realized that I haven't yet posted an Insider Trader on the new system! This will have an impact on people who make their money with inscription, as well as be a nice quality-of-life change for people who find themselves changing their spec and glyphs a lot.
As soon as the pre-expansion patch 4.0.1 launches, we're no longer going to have to buy glyphs more than once per character. Once you learn a glyph, you will always see it in your spellbook and will be able to switch between your known glyphs with a Dust of Disappearance, made by scribes from the same ink used to craft glyphs. While this won't mean much if you tend to stick with a single set of glyphs, if you change them around a lot, you will find it easier to manage and less expensive. On the live servers, every time you make the change, you often end up paying enormous markups on glyphs -- there can be sporadic supply due to the massive number of auctions that need watching if someone is selling glyphs. After 4.0.1, assuming we know the glyph already, we'll just have to buy a single dust, and every scribe in the auction house will be competing for that business.
Your glyph tab is going to look a little different too. We'll be able to learn and use three types of glyphs: minor, major and prime.
- Prime glyphs are going to be the new major glyphs; however, since our major glyphs currently seem split between min-maxing and stuff that doesn't change our raw numbers, Blizzard decided to put all the min-max type stuff into the prime category. Anything that directly makes you better at your job (more crit on an attack, added healing efficiency, defensive cooldown reduction, etc.) will probably be a prime glyph.
- Major glyphs will be everything that raiders typically pass up in favor of min-max glyphs now. This is where they're going to put stuff that can make you better at your job but isn't the blindingly obvious best and only choice. There is supposed to be room for personal preference in this tier.
- Minor glyphs will be similar to what they are now -- mostly cosmetic and fun, some minor utility, but it'll be rare.
The glyph market
How does this affect the glyph market? Obviously, everything's conjecture at this point. In fact, that's the hardest part about writing about the virtual economy: When there's a massive change like what we're expecting in Cataclysm, almost everything in the economy is going to be a toss-up. This is the one part of the game that we, as players, are mostly responsible for shaping.
The biggest shift is happening to one of the components of glyph demand on the live servers: people who reglyph. Whether it's because they're so hardcore that they min-max based on the content they're doing, or just because they bought sub-optimal glyphs that are being replaced, people change glyphs, and it's a significant part of the glyph business. This will change in Cataclysm. This demand will now be for dust, and you can't gain a competitive advantage with a one product market by having the best addons. This is a win for the game designers, who I suspect were never happy with the way the glyph market forced people to use addons to have a chance to compete.
Before all you glyph hawkers start dropping your profession for engineering, though, remember that there's a huge amount of business that comes from people buying glyphs for the first time on a character. Lots of people roll alts, and these alts usually get glyphs. The glyph market will be far from dead in Cataclysm. It will simply become one of those markets that caters to new characters only. In a way, it will be similar to the bag market: Netherweave Bags sell as well as they do because of all the new characters who need them. In addition, there should be a surge of demand for glyphs when 4.0.1 drops as people buy up all the glyphs for all the characters they plan on playing.
Of course, I imagine that there will be new cataclysmic versions of all the other revenue sources that scribes currently enjoy: trinkets like the Darkmoon Card: Greatness, off-hands like Faces of Doom and Iron-Bound Tome, as well as, of course, weapon and armor vellum.
Insider Trader takes you behind the scenes of the bustling subculture of professional craftsmen and auctioneers, examining the profitable, the unprofitable and everything in between.Filed under: Economy, Insider Trader (Professions), Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
wutsconflag Sep 27th 2010 5:22PM
The Sky is NOT Falling.™
greenthumbs Sep 27th 2010 6:06PM
Well there goes the market for the [Umbrella] they were going to introduce for Tailoring in Cataclysm *sigh*
Sinthar Sep 28th 2010 9:17AM
Dont worry -- Acme covered the umbrella - but after numerous Wile.E.Cayote tests it was abandoned, as it didnt stop boulders :)
Firestyle Sep 27th 2010 5:31PM
Glad to see this change. The glyph market was a crap-shoot and many times you get gouged on price since only one person is posting a given glyph, for say 100g each. Best thing I ever did was to have a guildie craft me glyphs in stacks and I banked them. Saved me thousands in price gouging at this point.
wutsconflag Sep 27th 2010 5:35PM
I went into the glyph market to try to make some gold, and it worked, but I also did it to bring the price of glyphs down. Managed to bring them from 40g apiece to 5-20g apiece. While I have to deal with a few other competitors, this only helps my second stated goal. I will admit, even as a scribe, selling a glyph for 100g is just a greasy way of making gold, but to each their own.
JackOfAllGames Sep 27th 2010 10:54PM
Personally, I've never understood such thinking. I just see it as the way free markets work.
If prices are high, why not just level the profession yourself and make some money at it? In the process, the increased competition will probably lower prices (if only a bit) for everyone else.
I believe that if prices are truly too high, people won't pay them. I know that I never pay more than I feel is right. If prices are consistently too high (so that simply watching for a good deal doesn't work) I learn to make what I need or I find a way to get it cheaper. Asking for help from a guildie is often the easiest way, but there are still other options. You can simply watch the prices on the AH and try to find a good deal. Usually, I've found that it isn't too hard to find a good deal if you just watch for it. Occasionally, I've even tried talking to one of the people selling whatever I want on the AH - many times I've found that they're happy to make a deal (plus, they don't have to pay the "AH tax" that way).
These are my own thoughts on the matter. You may agree or disagree as you see fit. =)
Bill Sep 28th 2010 8:18AM
Not really sure how it is price gouging. Every single player has the same opportunity to learn the glyphs and if you spend the 5 minutes a day you learn all but the ones from the books of glyph mastery. I spent the time learning the skill and spend the time making the glyphs available why shouldn't I make gold off it? The problem now is that so many whiners that didn't want to be bothered with trade skills didn't like the fact that someone could make serious gold off of one. So, they whined long and loud enough so blizzard buckled. I wonder if the other consumable markets will see the same change.
For those who don't understand economics, the value of the glyph has absolutely nothing to do with how much it takes to produce but, is solely based on how much someone is willing to spend for it.
I personally will keep my inscription skill come cataclysm but, will only be selling glyphs for 1k each. If you don't want to pay it oh well, I made my gold from it already. I recommend all glyph selling really raise there prices now to make the whiners pay before cataclysm comes out.
mark Sep 27th 2010 5:33PM
i can see the trade spam going from "wts any glyph x per" to "wts full sets of glyphs X per glyph"
and instead of inks for the missing/overpriced glyphs we sell glyph swap mats
charlie Sep 27th 2010 5:40PM
Seen as the dust is available from vendors, then I don't see why anyone would go to a scribe.
I imagine the bottom will fall out of the glyph market very quickly. The first few days there will be a huge sales whilst everyone re-glyphs...reminds me of making 5k in those first few hours when I learned the Penguin minor glyph :) ...but after that, it'll get flooded as demand drops and supply increases.
Saeadame Sep 27th 2010 5:51PM
True, but it's no different than what happened when inscription first came out. For a couple days (even weeks) everyone was trying to get good glyphs, and with the CD on learning minor glyphs it extended the duration of the scramble a little. Once everyone mostly had what they needed though, demand dropped off. Sure, there was a small market for alts and classes that had 4 or 5 good major glyphs that they wanted to swap in and out situationally, but in general the market stabilized. It doesn't mean you can't still make money off it, it just means it's harder =).
John Sep 27th 2010 6:40PM
I am pretty sure the glyph-disappearing dusts sold by vendors on the PTR / beta are not going to continue to be there once 4.0 goes live or when cata goes live.
Could be wrong.
Jiffah Sep 27th 2010 7:17PM
Betas sometimes provide testers with the mats from a vendor for a faster testing process. Indeed, these dusts could end up coming from scribes alone. We'll see.
Tyr Sep 27th 2010 5:41PM
Man, I still have about 600 glyphs stuck in my bank that need selling and I'll never sell those quick enough to earn myself a decent profit seeing as how there are at least 6 other glyph moguls on my server who all have a full bank of glyphs. There's also the problem of someone tanking the market every few weeks by selling everything at 2g and that destroys the market for at least a week every time, wasting valuable pre-expansion time.
At least it doesn't need much upkeep but it can be a very frustrating business sometimes and I hope the cataclysm simplifies it a bit.
Lee Weaver Sep 27th 2010 6:00PM
Because that is how much they should cost. it's not like it takes forever to make tehm and teh herbs are free for the picking. 2G is what all glyphs should cost.
wutsconflag Sep 27th 2010 6:33PM
@Lee Weaver:
False. Herbs aren't free. Please look up opportunity costs.
@Tyr:
If you really want to sell the glyphs, you might consider sending a mail to your competitors and seeing if they'd consider buying your overstock directly from you. Or, stick them up at a loss. Or, better yet, hold onto them until 4.0.1 when everyone comes out of the woodwork to buy, and (unless there are hundreds of each glyph up) even the expensive glyphs will sell.
Kren Sep 27th 2010 6:40PM
Yes, because glyphs that cost 1.5-3g to make should definitely cost 2g. That makes a lot of sense.
AltairDusk Sep 27th 2010 6:49PM
All glyphs should be 2g? That's an awfully selfish stance to take. At that price a scribe is likely taking a loss considering the price of the herbs.
Picking herbs is not free, it's quite time consuming and as Basil and his goblin friends will tell you "Time is money friend."
Robert Sep 27th 2010 7:33PM
I sell my glyphs in trade chat alone. I charge 15g per glyph. Doesn't matter what the glyph is, it's a flat 15g every time. 5g for mats, and 10g for me bothering to come to you.
Artificial Sep 27th 2010 7:41PM
I love arguments about what something "should" cost.
"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it." --Publilius Syrus
Things that are irrelevant to what something is worth: how much time it takes to make, how much effort or talent is required, and what the materials that make it are worth. Many people mistakenly think these somehow establish the value of something. They do not. They only establish whether and how profitable it is to make and sell.
If something is worth less than the materials and time used to make it, it's not the case that it "should" cost more, rather, it's the case that people looking to make a profit should be doing something else, like selling the raw materials and using that opportunity cost time to do something else instead. If enough people do this, the value of the product may rise to more profitable levels. Until then, the only "should" in the market is, if you want to make a profit, you should be doing something else instead.
Saeadame Sep 27th 2010 5:48PM
Question: As scribe I should probably stock up on inks now? Ie - buy/farm herbs before the new glyph system drops? I assume that the price of herbs will go way up (like it did when inscription first came out), so I should make sure I have my mats to make glyphs now, so I'm not having issues making a profit later. Probably, I could also make a killing waiting to sell any herbs I get after stocking up on inks until after the patch drops.