WoW Insider http://wow.joystiq.com WoW Insider http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/feedlogo.gif WoW Insider http://wow.joystiq.com prods@weblogsinc.com (Weblogs, Inc. Producers) (Weblogs, Inc. Web Support) en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. View our terms of service here: http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/ Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/ <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Things that still sell at the end of an expansion]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/18/gold-capped-things-that-still-sell-at-the-end-of-an-expansion/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/18/gold-capped-things-that-still-sell-at-the-end-of-an-expansion/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/18/gold-capped-things-that-still-sell-at-the-end-of-an-expansion/#comments sunset pandaria Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

The end of an expansion is a tough time to make gold. There's a lot more competition for a lot less demand. Many people see gold-making as a nice casual way to play while they wait for the next content dump, and fewer people are playing seriously (which is the root of demand for a lot of popular and profitable markets). To top it all off, we know that inflation is going to take a huge chunk out of our net worth when Mists launches, and there are a bunch of new things to save money up for. What kind of things can you still sell to make a profit?

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Gold Capped: Things that still sell at the end of an expansion originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 18 May 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> altsend-of-expansiongoldgold-makingmarket-makerpetssell-transmog-geartransmog-setwow-gold (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 18 May 2012 12:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Unlimited long-term storage]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/04/gold-capped-unlimited-long-term-storage/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/04/gold-capped-unlimited-long-term-storage/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/04/gold-capped-unlimited-long-term-storage/#comments tradeskillmaster mailing addon Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Ever see anyone trying to buy or sell a guild with bank tabs? There are people who will stop at nothing to store more stuff, especially those of us who play the gold-making game. One of the biggest challenges of making gold is, in fact, storing stuff. Bags are expensive, guild tabs are even more expensive, and there is a hard limit of 10 (for now) characters per realm. Each character has four bag slots and eight bank slots, as well as some built-in backpack and bank slots. This may seem like a lot, but what if you wanted to, for example, stockpile 10,000g worth of Hypnotic Dust, expecting it to sell for 70,000g in Mists of Pandaria? That could be over 700 stacks.

Luckily, there's a simple and virtually free way to store unlimited amounts of stuff and save all your expensive inventory slots.

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Gold Capped: Unlimited long-term storage originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 04 May 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> automailbulk-storageget-all-mail-macroget-wow-goldgoldinventorymailmail-all-macromailingstoragetradeskillmasterwowwow-goldwow-macro (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 04 May 2012 09:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Raiding: Weighing the benefits of 25-man raids vs. 10-man raids]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/04/20/raiding-weighing-the-benefits-of-25-man-raids-vs-10-man-raids/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/04/20/raiding-weighing-the-benefits-of-25-man-raids-vs-10-man-raids/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/04/20/raiding-weighing-the-benefits-of-25-man-raids-vs-10-man-raids/#comments 25s 10s raiding graph According to Wowtrack.com, the number of 25-man raiding guilds is several orders of magnitude smaller than the number of 10-man raiding guilds. Why is Blizzard spending so much effort balancing both the 10- and 25-man raid formats when the 25-man raiding community contains an incredibly low percentage of the raiding population?

Blizzard Community Manager Zarhym recently posted this on a forum thread about the subject:

Zarhym
We'll continue making adjustments as necessary to keep 10- and 25-player raids within a relative alignment, in terms of time investment, difficulty and rewards. It may never be perfect, but we still see interest in both raid sizes for different reasons. And ultimately we'll continue designing 25-player raids as long as there are a decent number of guilds interested in the format. We've seen no evidence as of yet that such interest is waning to any degree that should cause us great concern.

We tend to begin raid design around 25 players anyway before tuning for the various sizes and difficulties. That, when combined with our intent to carry on with 25-player Raid Finder group sizes, makes it very much worth our time to continue designing 25-player raids.

Regardless of what players' personal preferences or opinions are regarding the varied raid formats in World of Warcraft, we don't see removing options as a smart choice in the foreseeable future.

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Raiding: Weighing the benefits of 25-man raids vs. 10-man raids originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> 10-man10-vs-2510s25-man25sfeaturedguild-leadershipguild-managementguild-officersleadershipraid-formatwow-guild-managementwow-guildswow-leadershipzarhym (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Taking charge of your gold in the first days of Mists of Pandaria]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/04/06/taking-charge-of-your-gold-in-the-first-days-of-mists-of-pandari/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/04/06/taking-charge-of-your-gold-in-the-first-days-of-mists-of-pandari/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/04/06/taking-charge-of-your-gold-in-the-first-days-of-mists-of-pandari/#comments chopper monks Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

The first few days of an expansion are a little like the wild west. This week, Gold Capped received an email about these first days:

I love your column on WoW Insider. It's been an eye opener for me on just how easy it can be to make some serious gold. That said, I didn't discover it until well after Cataclysm had launched, and so my question to you is; what were the first few days of the Cataclysm launch like economically, and what do you think I can expect from Mists of Pandaria? I had a blacksmith at the time of the Cata launch, and I remember spending exorbitant amounts of gold on ore/bars (he wasn't a miner). Is it a situation where, for the first few days, farming actually is worth doing, or are goods still worth making then? I have a bunch of 85s, all with worthwhile trade skills, and I'm just wondering what the best way will be to capitalize on the newness of the expansion.

The first few days of every new expansion, including Cataclysm, were a little crazy. The first thing you need to prepare for is the hyperinflation. Everyone will have more money, and they will all be spending it. Nothing gets people spending their savings like a new expansion. Pets will be battleable, new glyphs will be available, and everyone will be leveling professions. All this new demand is going to overwhelm the farmers, and for a while at least, the only cheap way to get materials will be to farm them yourself.

Continue reading Taking charge of your gold in the first days of Mists of Pandaria

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Taking charge of your gold in the first days of Mists of Pandaria originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> expansionfirst-daysgoldinflationmake-goldmists-of-pandarianew-expansionpandaria (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[3 things that will become more expensive in Mists of Pandaria]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/03/30/3-things-that-will-become-more-expensive-in-mists-of-pandaria/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/03/30/3-things-that-will-become-more-expensive-in-mists-of-pandaria/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/03/30/3-things-that-will-become-more-expensive-in-mists-of-pandaria/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

If you save every gold you have right now until the next expansion, you won't actually be any poorer than you currently are, but you sure will feel like you are. Assuming there are no new gold sinks, the amount of gold entering your characters' pockets is going to skyrocket, and they will all buy stuff you want, raising prices across the board. Farmers will make more from crafters, who will charge more for crafted goods.

World of Inflationcraft

Inflation is one of those universal truths like taxes and hunter envy. Unlike hunter envy, though, it can't be avoided by simply upgrading your main from a support class to a hunter. The best way to deal with it is to plan ahead and tie up as much of your money on things that will go up in price. You want to aim for things that will rise at least as much as inflation will erode the value of your savings.

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3 things that will become more expensive in Mists of Pandaria originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> goldgold-makinggold-stratgold-strategygold-stratsgold-tipsmists-of-pandariaworld-of-wacraft-money-makingworld-of-warcraft-goldworld-of-warcraft-money-making-guidewow-goldwow-gold-strategywow-gold-tipswow-moneywow-money-guidewow-money-making-guide (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[3 things that need to change about WoW's auction house]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/03/16/3-things-that-need-to-change-about-wows-auction-house/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/03/16/3-things-that-need-to-change-about-wows-auction-house/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/03/16/3-things-that-need-to-change-about-wows-auction-house/#comments ah interface Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Of all the many things that could be done to make the Auction House a less frustrating and intimidating experience for players, three stand out to me. First, Blizzard needs to fix the insane inflation in the economy. Second, it needs to fix what people see when they click on an auctioneer, and lastly, it needs to allow farmers to fill buy orders instead of posting stock for sale. These three changes, if made, would greatly equalize the economy and serve to reduce the drudgery that the vast majority of players have to deal with.

What the heck are buy orders?

I'll start with buy orders because it's the least obvious issue. Right now, when a farmer wants to make some gold for a BoE or a mount or whatever, they go and farm and then come back to a city and dump everything they've made onto the AH. Nobody likes waiting for their money, and most farmers have been burned by a huge batch of goods coming back, minus the auctioneers' listing cut, unsold due to too much competition. In order to have to wait to lose money for all the hard work they did, they'll list their goods more cheaply than they're perhaps worth.

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3 things that need to change about WoW's auction house originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> easy-goldfarming-guidefeaturedgoldgold-farminggold-guidegold-makinggold-stratgold-strategygold-stratsgold-tipsworld-of-wacraft-money-makingworld-of-warcraft-easy-goldworld-of-warcraft-goldworld-of-warcraft-money-making-guidewow-easy-goldwow-goldwow-gold-farmingwow-gold-guidewow-gold-legalwow-gold-reviewswow-gold-strategywow-gold-tipswow-moneywow-money-guidewow-money-making-guide (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[2 crafting professions that won't make you rich]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/03/04/gold-capped-two-crafting-professions-that-wont-make-you-rich/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/03/04/gold-capped-two-crafting-professions-that-wont-make-you-rich/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/03/04/gold-capped-two-crafting-professions-that-wont-make-you-rich/#comments glyph heat map Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

If you're trying to decide which professions to put on your character and you are considering their gold making potential, you'll want to avoid engineering and inscription. While they're not terrible if you consider their stat bonuses, they're not ideal for gold making on many realms.

Of course, every realm has its own ecosystem, and as with all advice you'll read from this column, you should check that the assumptions hold for your realm and faction. That said, by far the most common problems I have trouble helping people with are related to these two professions.

Inscription

I'll start with the one that's going to get me the angry comments first. Inscription has long been touted as a cornerstone of the money making meta game -- heck, it earned my esteemed colleague, Fox, his first million gold on Darkmoon Cards. Before that, we had "glyphsmas" when 4.0 hit and a steady level of demand for glyphs before that. We still have the stupidly profitable fortune card market that lets anyone open a tiny, Blizzard-sanctioned casino. So what's not to like?

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2 crafting professions that won't make you rich originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> chopperdarkmoon-cardsengineeringglyphsgoldgold-makinginscriptionmysterious-fortune-cardspetsprofessionsranged-weaponsrelics (Basil Berntsen) Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Six gold-making macros that will save you hours]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/24/gold-capped-six-macros-that-will-save-you-hours/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/24/gold-capped-six-macros-that-will-save-you-hours/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/24/gold-capped-six-macros-that-will-save-you-hours/#comments banker pile of gold Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

As you start spending more time making money, you start to realize how much time you waste. Have you ever had to mail every single item in your bag to another of your characters? It's a lot of right-clicking. There are a bunch of tasks like this, including selling to vendors, buying from vendors, prospecting, posting for sale, and crafting.

First, know that only some things can be really automated. If there's a cast time, for example, the best you can do with a macro is shorten multiple clicks into a single macro that can be clicked or hotkeyed. Luckily, there's no cast time on vendor and mailbox interactions!

Continue reading Six gold-making macros that will save you hours

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Six gold-making macros that will save you hours originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> goldgold-guidegold-makinggold-stratgold-strategygold-stratsgold-tipsmacrosworld-of-wacraft-money-makingworld-of-warcraft-easy-goldworld-of-warcraft-goldworld-of-warcraft-money-making-guidewow-easy-goldwow-goldwow-gold-guidewow-gold-legalwow-gold-strategywow-gold-tipswow-moneywow-money-guidewow-money-making-guide (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[How to make gold when your competition is camping the AH]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/13/how-to-make-gold-when-your-competition-is-camping-the-ah/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/13/how-to-make-gold-when-your-competition-is-camping-the-ah/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/13/how-to-make-gold-when-your-competition-is-camping-the-ah/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Making gold with heavy competition is hard. I get comments on my articles all the time about how my ideas don't work on some high-population, high-competition realm. There's an implicit (and sometimes outright stated) disclaimer that any advice you'll find here is general and may not apply to your realm.

It's time to talk about what to do when you're always being redirected back to these weasel words. If your server really is so competitive that you can't make any normal strategies work, what can you do?

Continue reading How to make gold when your competition is camping the AH

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How to make gold when your competition is camping the AH originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> competitiongoldgold-guidegold-trickshigh-populationmake-gold-high-popmaking-gold (Basil Berntsen) Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Five myths about making gold]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/03/five-myths-about-making-gold/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/03/five-myths-about-making-gold/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/03/five-myths-about-making-gold/#comments treasure box Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Gold making is one of those games you can play without much cooperative interaction with other players. If I hadn't been set straight about how to raid by cooperative guildies when I started, I'd still be as bad as I was when I started, minus any progress I'd have made myself. This type of environment is a breeding ground for less-than-optimal gold making strategies, so here are five myths about gold making that continue to require banishment.

1. Mats are free if you don't pay gold for them. It doesn't matter whether you picked up a gem from a Satchel of Exotic Mystery, farmed a stack of herbs, procced a bonus somehow, or mugged someone. If you figure your cost on the mats for whatever you're selling as what you actually paid for it, you're doing it wrong. The value of crafting mats is what you could sell them for.

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Five myths about making gold originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> addonsauctionatorgoldgold-makinggold-tipsmythstipstradeskillmasterwow-gold (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[How to make 146g in Maelstrom Crystals in 5 minutes]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/20/how-to-make-146g-maelstrom-crystals-in-5-minutes/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/20/how-to-make-146g-maelstrom-crystals-in-5-minutes/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/20/how-to-make-146g-maelstrom-crystals-in-5-minutes/#comments Maelstrom Crystal Prices Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

All enchanters know that Maelstrom Crystals can be expensive, especially now that more players than ever have access to pretty good epic gear through the Raid Finder. This increase in demand has touched all professions that make things that improve gear, including enchanting. I know I went from paying under 90g for a Maelstrom Crystal to paying over 250g at one point soon after the launch of patch 4.3 and the Raid Finder, and that was after stockpiling (and subsequently blowing through) more than 75 stacks. If I knew then that I could have been making them in unlimited supply at 146g each, I'd have made a lot more.

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How to make 146g in Maelstrom Crystals in 5 minutes originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> easy-goldfarming-guidefeaturedgoldgold-farminggold-guidegold-makinggold-stratgold-strategygold-stratsgold-tipsmaelstrom-crystalworld-of-wacraft-money-makingworld-of-warcraft-easy-goldworld-of-warcraft-goldworld-of-warcraft-money-making-guidewow-easy-goldwow-goldwow-gold-farmingwow-gold-guidewow-gold-legalwow-gold-reviewswow-gold-strategywow-gold-tipswow-moneywow-money-guidewow-money-making-guide (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: The fastest way to make 10,000 gold]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/06/gold-capped-the-fastest-way-to-make-10-000-gold/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/06/gold-capped-the-fastest-way-to-make-10-000-gold/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/06/gold-capped-the-fastest-way-to-make-10-000-gold/#comments race track Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Every so often, I get asked something to the effect of "What's the fastest way to get 10,000 gold?" It's usually asked by someone who is perpetually poor in game and is looking to get a BoE or some other sort of reward that costs gold. The fastest way for me to get 10,000 gold is to log in and check my mail. My daily haul is many times that and scales based on how much time I have to craft, list, and relist. This isn't a useful answer to someone who lives paycheck to paycheck, though. So what advice would be helpful?

First off, if you're below level 85, get to level 85. This nets you quite a bit of gold simply from quest rewards and vendoring gear you acquire. If you're already level 85, the first thing you need to do is identify how much money you can make per hour running 5-mans for valor points that you can use to sell BoEs. On my realm, I could sell a BoE costing 1,650 VPs for about 10,000 gold. That means every valor point I earn could be worth 6 gold, which makes the 150 points I get from a 5-man worth 900g. I can do seven per week per character with the requisite gear. Also, every trash kill and boss kill has a chance of awarding you with valuables, including enchanting mats (if someone can DE) and BoEs.

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Gold Capped: The fastest way to make 10,000 gold originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> auction-housebeginnersfarminggoldgrindingmaking-goldprofessionsquick-way-to-make-gold (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[How to sell Hagara Pick Pockets to rogues]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/30/how-to-sell-hagara-pick-pockets-to-rogues/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/30/how-to-sell-hagara-pick-pockets-to-rogues/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/30/how-to-sell-hagara-pick-pockets-to-rogues/#comments afrasastraz Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

There's a fairly simple way to make gold without professions: Sell summons to a pick-pocketable Hagara to rogues looking to get their legendary quest starter daggers, Vengeance and Fear. These are the most accessible rogue weapons, because aside from picking the pocket of the fourth boss in a raid instance, the quest can be easily completed with a 10k gold and a minimum amount of help. These daggers are the best entry-level options for rogues who PvP or PvE, available as soon as they hit 85 and are capable of completing the quest.

If players are raiders, they'll probably get it for free just by being in a raid that gets to Hagara; however, if all they do is PvP or casual PvE through the Raid and Dungeon Finders, they won't be able to get the first leg of the quest finished. Within a few weeks, most rogues who want to start the quest will have started it. Until then, I've heard of non-raiding rogues paying as much as 25k for the opportunity to pick Hagara's pockets.

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How to sell Hagara Pick Pockets to rogues originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> daggerdragon-soulfearhagaralegendaryLockoutpick-pocketroguesellingvengeance (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[How to profit off Winter Veil]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/19/how-to-profit-off-winter-veil/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/19/how-to-profit-off-winter-veil/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/19/how-to-profit-off-winter-veil/#comments ice cold milk price ahspy Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Winter Veil is probably one of the most profitable game holidays. There are lots of achievements and quests people do, and some of these involve acquiring things that can be sold on the Auction House. The most interesting thing is that none of the things people will be needing require a maximum-level character to get and are, in fact, farmable by just about anyone over level 6 or so.

Small Eggs

Let's start with Small Eggs. Five of these are used to make the five Gingerbread Cookies required for the holiday quest Treats for Greatfather Winter. Small eggs are easily farmed, but the demand for them between Dec. 15 and Jan. 2 is more than can reasonably be farmed by any one person. People in the know have been preparing since last year and have stockpiled these eggs.

That said, the bulk needed to meet the demand generated by just about every single active player doing this quest on all their characters is pretty high, and these eggs don't come up on the Auction House that often for cheap. For the next few days until demand drops off a bit, people will buy these for between 2g and 5g, and if you have a character capable of killing level 6 monsters, you can farm hundreds an hour in Eversong Woods outside Silvermoon.

Continue reading How to profit off Winter Veil

How to profit off Winter Veil originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> ahauction-housedeeprock-saltgoldgold-makinggreen-winter-clothesholiday-gold-makingice-cold-milkpreserved-hollyred-winter-clothessmall-eggwinter-veil (Basil Berntsen) Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Selling valor point gear]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/16/gold-capped-selling-valor-point-gear/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/16/gold-capped-selling-valor-point-gear/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/16/gold-capped-selling-valor-point-gear/#comments valor point vendor Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Every single content patch, Blizzard turns the tables on gold makers and, for a brief period of time, allows any player to make tens of thousands of gold by selling valor point-bought BoE gear. We've all seen the ads in trade of people looking to buy them or sell them, but most people focus on their own gear first and only think about selling them once they've gotten a few upgrades. Is this unwise?

What if I told you that you could get several thousand gold and still have as much valor gear at the end of the month as your guildie who didn't sell a single BoE? It's all about timing. The valor point weekly cap is 1,000, and in the beginning of the week that valor BoEs are available for purchase, the prices are extremely high. They stay high for a few weeks but quickly plummet as people start to use more points to buy gear for selling. They bottom out eventually when people stop having upgrades available for valor.

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Gold Capped: Selling valor point gear originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> easy-goldgoldgold-makingpatch-4.3selling-valor-pointsvalor-points (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: This is the wrong way to do epic gems]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/09/gold-capped-this-is-the-wrong-way-to-do-epic-gems/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/09/gold-capped-this-is-the-wrong-way-to-do-epic-gems/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/09/gold-capped-this-is-the-wrong-way-to-do-epic-gems/#comments boxes vendor Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Epic gems are here, and they're designed differently than we're used to. To be specific, they're designed without fairness baked in, which is somewhat of a new feeling for people who weren't around buying epic gems in The Burning Crusade.

Fairness is actually the wrong word for this. Life isn't fair, and neither is WoW. Instead, I'll talk about balance. Blizzard has gone to great lengths to ensure that the game remains fun for as many people as possible by trying to avoid changes that suddenly disadvantage an arbitrary subset of players or shift the desirability of choices made a long time ago.

Balanced changes don't force competitive PvP and raiding group to play the gold-making game to be on a level footing with the competition. They also don't provide a tangible itemization difference between the profession perks of different crafting professions.

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Gold Capped: This is the wrong way to do epic gems originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> conquest-pointsdemandepic-gemsjewelcraftingpatch-4.3pricepvepvprarescarcitysupply (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Relentless markdown wars]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/02/gold-capped-relentless-markdown-wars/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/02/gold-capped-relentless-markdown-wars/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/02/gold-capped-relentless-markdown-wars/#comments gnome beaten up Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

I got an email from someone recently about a new competitor.
I have recently returned to the blacksmithing armor and belt buckles market. When I researched my old stomping ground, I found that materials cost has increased, profits are almost non-existent, and competition was rampant! I didn't let that get me down, however. I watched the market, checked the reference data, got a good handle on the situation, then when the time was right, made my move! Competition dropped like flies, profits rose, and life was grand. Then one day, I got a new big-wig competitor.

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Gold Capped: Relentless markdown wars originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> goldgold-cappedmaking-goldworld-of-warcraft-auction-houseworld-of-warcraft-goldwow-auction-housewow-economy (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Gold-making resources for auctioneers]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/18/wow-gold-making-resources/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/18/wow-gold-making-resources/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/18/wow-gold-making-resources/#comments treasure box Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

The best resources for making gold are not a very well kept secret. These sites and utilities are used by most serious auctioneers, and anyone looking to start making gold, even if only casually, would do well to learn how to use these.

The Undermine Journal

The Undermine Journal is first on my list. It is a site that does a lot of things, but most importantly, it shows you the price for any item on any realm. You can look back at how the price and supply for sale changed over the last two weeks, and you can see all the auctions of any competitor by clicking on their name. You can also compare prices on your realm to prices on other realms or the other faction on your realm.

The potential for research here is limitless. Any time you're looking for a new market, the first question you have to ask is whether there's enough of a gap between cost and price to support your margins, and seeing the answer to this question over a period of time is way more valuable than seeing just what's on the Auction House when you decide to check into it.

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Gold Capped: Gold-making resources for auctioneers originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> consortiumgoldgold-makingresourcesstormspiretradeskillmasterundermine-journal (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: How to get around realm transfer gold limits]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/11/gold-capped-how-to-get-around-realm-transfer-gold-limits/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/11/gold-capped-how-to-get-around-realm-transfer-gold-limits/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/11/gold-capped-how-to-get-around-realm-transfer-gold-limits/#comments top hat banker Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

I received an interesting email from a reader who is looking to transfer all of his gold to a new realm:

I have recently transferred to a new low population realm to try my raiding luck in a new guild. This turned out to be a good move on my part and I'm planning to stay there.

I had a decent amount of gold on my old realm, but I'm only allowed to transfer 50k gold with my character. Having done that already I still have a lot of now useless gold on my old realm. I am planning to transfer my main alt to my new realm, and I'd love to find a way to bring that money with me.

Should I buy all the expensive items I can find and try to sell them on my new realm? Should I making a guild to transfer where there is virtually no limit on gold? Transferring two characters over is expensive enough already.

What this amounts to is cross-realm arbitrage. And similarly to cross-faction arbitrage, there's actually money to be made -- even if you're aiming to bring more wealth with you than you're strictly allowed to.

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Gold Capped: How to get around realm transfer gold limits originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 11 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> first-world-problemsI-am-the-1-percent (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 11 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Scattered Shots: Scatter-trapping with grace and ease]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/05/scattered-shots-scatter-trapping-with-grace-and-ease/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/05/scattered-shots-scatter-trapping-with-grace-and-ease/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/05/scattered-shots-scatter-trapping-with-grace-and-ease/#comments hunter wins blizzcon arena championship Frostheim appears to be decimated, unable to write this week, over the loss of the most recent raiding gun from the patch 4.3 PTR files. As someone who PVPs to get my first raiding weapon of most patches, I can choose whichever ranged death-dealing machine I want. Of course, as a Worgen (not to mention someone who is generally the butt of many of Frostheim's jokes on our podcast), I usually choose a crossbow after buying, returning and screenshotting the gun.

Today, Scattered Shots will be all about a very basic hunter PVP survival skill: scatter-trapping. All hunters of all specs can scatter-trap, and whether you're being ganked doing dailies, trying to win Baradin Hold, or doing competitive Arena, it's one of those skills that can really set you apart.

Traps on their own are only useful for people you can force to cross through them. Mostly, this means melee, although you can sometimes force a ranged player to cross a trap if you're humping a pillar properly. What do we do when we want to freeze someone who isn't chasing us, though? Freezing Trap is really our most effective crowd control ability. We'll often want it to be used on someone that matters like a healer. Unfortunately, short of stepping up to a healer and dropping a trap on them, there's no way to force them to cross our path.

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Scattered Shots: Scatter-trapping with grace and ease originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 05 Nov 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> arenabattlegroundsbeast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotsccclass-helpcontrolcrowd-controlfeaturedfreezing-trapguideguide-to-huntershunterhunter-beast-mastery-scattered-shotshunter-guidehunter-infohunter-marksmanship-scattered-shotshunter-survival-scattered-shotshunter-talentsmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotspvpscatter-shotscatter-trapsilencestunsurvival-hunter-scattered-shotstalenttalentsworld-of-warcraft-class-guideworld-of-warcraft-guidewow-class-guidewow-class-helpwow-guidewow-hunterwow-hunter-infowow-hunterswow-talent-guide (Basil Berntsen) Sat, 05 Nov 2011 18:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: How to deal with AH stalkers]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/03/gold-capped-how-to-deal-with-ah-stalkers/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/03/gold-capped-how-to-deal-with-ah-stalkers/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/03/gold-capped-how-to-deal-with-ah-stalkers/#comments scumbag steve camps the auction house Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Camping and stalking are two different things, and I got an email from someone facing both asking for help.

I was wondering if you had any advice on discouraging less palatable AH competition? I'm speaking in particular about obsessive AH campers and their stalking tendencies.

I know it's pretty standard for competitors to add each other to their friends (or enemies) list in order to keep an eye on when they're around, but over this expansion I've encountered some behaviours which seem to be pushing the boundaries of what is and isn't OK. Earlier in the year I had one competitor follow me across Stormwind, then to Darnassus, then to the Exodar, and finally to Shattrath where I eventually logged because it was getting beyond creepy to cut a gem and then moments later see this guy targeting me and cutting the same thing.

I'm not an AH camper, but when I am on I'm happy to list/relist against the guys that are - this one following me now seems to be the dominant one on the server (or the most persistent), but I wanted to know if you had any advice on how to discourage this?

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Gold Capped: How to deal with AH stalkers originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> auction-housecampingcompetitionsgoldgold-makingmailstalkingtacticstradeskillmaster (Basil Berntsen) Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Mobile Auction House functionality updated]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/31/gold-capped-mobile-auction-house-functionality-updated/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/31/gold-capped-mobile-auction-house-functionality-updated/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/31/gold-capped-mobile-auction-house-functionality-updated/#comments auction house mobile versus in-game Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

The WoW Remote, or Mobile Auction House, has been upgraded. Here are the new features that have been announced:

-Automatic price undercutting: Set the default buyout price of your auctions to match or undercut the current lowest buyout price for an item
-Aggregated buyout search results: Multiple auctions posted at the same buyout price can now be viewed as a single group
-Support for the following Guild features: Level, Perks, Rewards, Achievements, News, Events, and MotD
-Realm Status
-Search now suggests terms based on previous searches and matching items
-Talent Calculator
-Various bug fixes


While some of the features are available to everyone, whether they pay the $36 a year mobility fee or not, most of this concerns auctioneers. There are a bunch of welcome and much-needed changes and bug fixes in this patch -- so many, in fact, that it's left the vanilla (unmodified) Auction House so far behind that it's actually eating the in-game Auction House's dust as it laps it.

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Gold Capped: Mobile Auction House functionality updated originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> goldmaking-goldmobile-auction-houseupdateswow-remotewow-remote-auction-house (Basil Berntsen) Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Chaos Orbs to become tradable in 4.3]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/21/patch-4-3-chaos-orbs/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/21/patch-4-3-chaos-orbs/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/21/patch-4-3-chaos-orbs/#comments bank vault open Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Chaos Orbs, currently soulbound, are BOE on the player test realm for patch 4.3. Blizzard said that this would happen at some point, and since this is literally the last point before the end of Cataclysm, it's happening next patch.

Currently, only crafters who can use them can even roll on them. Once they become BOE, anyone will be able to roll on them. If this feels unfair, remember that tradable loot (even BOE gear) is greed only. Whether you use it or sell it, it's worth what someone would pay for it. If you decide to use it yourself, you're in essence paying what someone else would have bought it for.

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Gold Capped: Chaos Orbs to become tradable in 4.3 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> blacksmithingchaos-orbengineeringgoldgold-makingleatherworkingpatch-4.3patch-4.3-ptrtailoringtradable (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Scattered Shots: Improving hunter PVP]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/14/scattered-shots-improving-hunter-pvp/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/14/scattered-shots-improving-hunter-pvp/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/14/scattered-shots-improving-hunter-pvp/#comments hunter 3v3 pvp graph Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim. This week, his evil twin, Basil "Euripides" Berntsen, is covering for him while he sleeps off the after-effects of the last Hunting Party Podcast.

Hunter PVP is in a bad state right now. This does not mean that you can't get Gladiator with a hunter, but it does mean you have to be way better to do it than if you were to play, say, a warlock. You also have to do it in a very small subset of viable team compositions, where your warlock alt could succeed in a large variety of team compositions.

Before you burn a hole through that "add comment" button arguing with me about viability and how Arena representation isn't worth the pixels it's displayed on, remember that I'm arguing that it takes more skill to succeed in PVP as a hunter. I'm not arguing that you can't do it, and I know that Arena class representation isn't a perfect measure of class balance. The same way some specs (like BM) are underrepresented in the top 100 PVE raid parses, the highest-rated PVP players in the game tend to play classes they feel they will do best, which skews the representation farther away from some perfectly viable spec/class combos. Arena representation is, however, one quantifiable number we can look into for insight.

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Scattered Shots: Improving hunter PVP originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> beast-mastery-hunter-scattered-shotsclass-helpfeaturedguideguide-to-huntershunter-beast-mastery-scattered-shotshunter-guidehunter-infohunter-marksmanship-scattered-shotshunter-survival-scattered-shotshunter-talentsmarksmanship-hunter-scattered-shotspvpsurvival-hunter-scattered-shotstalenttalentsworld-of-warcraft-class-guideworld-of-warcraft-guidewow-class-guidewow-class-helpwow-guidewow-hunterwow-hunter-infowow-hunterswow-talent-guide (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Legally buy gold with the Guardian Cub]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/11/gold-capped-legally-buy-gold-with-the-guardian-cub/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/11/gold-capped-legally-buy-gold-with-the-guardian-cub/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/11/gold-capped-legally-buy-gold-with-the-guardian-cub/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

If you buy a Guardian Cub with real money, you can sell it for in-game gold, effectively purchasing gold. If you're one of the millions of WoW players who are constantly cash-strapped in game, you now have the option of leaving the whole gold making process to others; simply buy a $10 pet that can be sold for gold on the AH. BOE gear, mounts, flying training, and alts are all expensive, and making money (playing the AH, doing dailies, selling valor point BOE gear, etc.) isn't the most fun use of some peoples' time. This change will be a welcome one for those who would rather spend the time needed to make $10 at their day job than hours grinding gold. Additionally, pet collectors who also play the gold making game will be able to get a pet from the pet store without having to lay out real money for it.

So how much will these pets cost, anyway? The answer will vary from realm to realm, but one thing is certain: The demand for the pets will spike out of the door, then fall off a cliff as soon as enough people have one. Also, repeat business isn't any more likely than for other Blizzard Store items -- I almost never see people sporting their Lil' K.T or sparkle ponies these days, and I imagine that few people still pay real money for them. As the demand drops off, these will sell for less and less gold. The supply is directly related to the number of people buying them from the store for resale on the AH. This means that the more gold the cubs are worth, the more supply there will be. Eventually, as demand peters out, people will be less likely to buy them for resale.

In short, if you want to buy gold without breaking the terms of service, get it while the getting is good. The gold per pet will go nowhere but down, unless Blizzard likes this system so much that it introduces more items like this.

Continue reading Gold Capped: Legally buy gold with the Guardian Cub

Gold Capped: Legally buy gold with the Guardian Cub originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> blizzard-pet-storebuy-gold-guardian-cubcubgold-buyinggold-makingguardianguardian-cubinflationpet-storewow-buy-gold (Basil Berntsen) Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Shattering Maelstrom Crystals]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/07/gold-capped-shattering-maelstrom-crystals/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/07/gold-capped-shattering-maelstrom-crystals/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/10/07/gold-capped-shattering-maelstrom-crystals/#comments Trading Floor Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Patch 4.3 will bring with it the ability to shatter Maelstrom Crystals into Heavenly Shards. This is unsurprising, as we have been able to shatter or transform the epic enchanting mats from other expansions. At this time, it looks like it will produce two Heavenly Shards per Maelstrom Crystal, and since it's not disenchanting, it's unlikely to be affected by the guild perk. This is going to be an opportunity for people to make some money, as well as provide a much needed sink for these Maelstrom Crystals, which have been piling up of late.

The market for Heavenly Shards is a little odd. In case you've forgotten, you can make one from 16 Elementium Ore and 8 Obsidium Ore. Despite this being "common" knowledge, the price for these enchanting mats has a consistently high profit margin. Maybe it's because of how long and annoying it is to turn ore into shards, or maybe it's because of the large volume taken by the popular enchants this expansion.

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Gold Capped: Shattering Maelstrom Crystals originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> ahauction-houseenchantingheavenly-shardmaelstrom-crystalmaelstrom-shattermaking-goldpatch-4.3patch-4.3-ptrstockpilingwow-gold-making (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Upcoming Volatile Fire shortages]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/09/30/gold-capped-upcoming-volatile-fire-shortages/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/09/30/gold-capped-upcoming-volatile-fire-shortages/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/09/30/gold-capped-upcoming-volatile-fire-shortages/#comments scene firelands dailies Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Volatile Fire is quite cheap now but will not remain so after patch 4.3. Volatiles are a cornerstone of the crafting and economic design of WoW, as each one has several types of items that require it for production. When the prices of Volatiles increase, crafted goods go up in price and raw materials go down in price.

Very few people farm exclusively for Volatiles, as they're usually given a small chance to drop off things that are worth considerably more than the Volatiles themselves (like ore veins and elementals). That's part of why the Volatiles market is exceptionally susceptible to changes that change the way a lot of people play and loot. In this case for Volatile Fire, right now a ton of Fires are coming from people continuing to do Fireland dailies. Patch 4.3 is around the corner and will likely have something cooler for people do with their time than grind for entry level raiding and PVP gear. What can you do to protect yourself and profit from these changes?

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Gold Capped: Upcoming Volatile Fire shortages originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> demandincreasepatch-4.3pricesupplyvolatile-firevolatiles (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Epic gems in patch 4.3]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/09/23/patch-4-3-epic-gems/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/09/23/patch-4-3-epic-gems/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/09/23/patch-4-3-epic-gems/#comments pyrite ore price graph Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Epic gems will come in patch 4.3. They'll not be prospectable from Pyrite or anything else -- instead they will drop from geodes on raid bosses. This may not be the final design, but it's what Blizzard has decided so far. The people who need the gems most are going to be the source for the uncut gems, and the quantity available will be very low.

Every time I've talked about this before, I've hedged my bets that Blizzard might drastically change the design for epic gems compared to the last expansion. As things turn out, it did, and we're going back to a design reminiscent of epic gems in The Burning Crusade, which were mostly available to raiders. Everyone who stockpiled Pyrite now has to decide what to do with it.

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Gold Capped: Epic gems in patch 4.3 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 23 Sep 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> changesepic-gemsgoldhoardingjewelcraftingmaking-gold-with-epic-gemsnot-prospectable-from-pyritepatch-4.3pyrite-orespeculation (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 23 Sep 2011 09:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Selling PvP and leveling gear]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/09/16/selling-pvp-gear-ah/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/09/16/selling-pvp-gear-ah/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/09/16/selling-pvp-gear-ah/#comments banker in bank Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

If you can make blue PVP and leveling gear, you can make a lot of gold. Blacksmithing is one of my most profitable businesses, and almost all of the money I've made is from that gear. Sure, belt buckles are great cash when there's no massive undercutting war, but every night a couple of people kit out their plate alts with my Hardened Obsidium gear or start a PVP set with my Bloodthirsty Pyrium gear.

There are three professions that you can use for this market: blacksmithing, leatherworking, and tailoring. All three of them have gear that is appealing for alts and new characters; however, be aware that some of this gear is made by people leveling the trade skill and isn't worth making.

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Gold Capped: Selling PvP and leveling gear originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> blacksmithingcraftinggoldgold-makingleatherworkingpvp-geartailoring (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Epic gems must be in patch 4.3]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/26/gold-capped-epic-gems-must-be-in-patch-4-3/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/26/gold-capped-epic-gems-must-be-in-patch-4-3/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/26/gold-capped-epic-gems-must-be-in-patch-4-3/#comments loot box epic gems Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Now that we know that patch 4.3 will be the final Cataclysm content patch and contain the means with which to kill Deathwing, we know beyond reasonable doubt that epic gems will be released in that patch.

It's unreasonably doubtful that Blizzard would introduce epic gems before 4.3, and aside from not introducing epic gems at all, that's the only option that would lead to my prediction being wrong. That said, there's tons of stuff we don't know about how this will work. Here's a big one: Where will epic gems come from? If we knew that, intelligent auctioneers would start stockpiling ages before the patch in preparation.

Continue reading Gold Capped: Epic gems must be in patch 4.3

Gold Capped: Epic gems must be in patch 4.3 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> auction-houseepicepic-gemsgemsgoldmakingmaking-moneypatch-4.3patch-4.3-predictionsprospectablepyritewill-epic-gems (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Dealing with Neutral Auction House sniping]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/19/neutral-auction-house-sniping/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/19/neutral-auction-house-sniping/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/19/neutral-auction-house-sniping/#comments auctioneer text boom headshot guy Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Neutral auction house sniping is the practice of lurking at the neutral auction house (which is usable by both factions) until someone tries to use it to move items from one of their characters to another across factions, and then stealing it. Unlike someone who ninjas a mount in a PUG, this type of theft is totally OK with Blizzard -- all the sniper is doing is buying a posted auction.

Continue reading Gold Capped: Dealing with Neutral Auction House sniping

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Gold Capped: Dealing with Neutral Auction House sniping originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> aharbitrageauctioneerfeaturedgold-makingneutral-auction-housereal-timesearchersnipersniping (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: How to make gold with enchanting]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/12/gold-capped-how-to-make-gold-with-enchanting/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/12/gold-capped-how-to-make-gold-with-enchanting/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/12/gold-capped-how-to-make-gold-with-enchanting/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Enchanting is one of the biggest money-makers in the game. Most of that money is earned by selling scrolls, which are simply enchants saved on a vellum. I've written about selling these before, but it was a long time ago and the tools have changed considerably. Making gold with enchanting is surprisingly straightforward and involves three steps: getting mats, crafting scrolls, and posting them.

Let's start at the beginning

Which enchants do you sell? Assuming you're already 525, you'll definitely want to consider all the Cataclysm enchants. The ones used in leveling are almost always going to be cheaper than the mats, but the rest of them may be profitable, especially the ones that you have to buy off the vendor. It's probably worth investing in the new bracer enchants; however, bear in mind that these are somewhat rare BOE random drops that might cost you a fair bit.

Continue reading Gold Capped: How to make gold with enchanting

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Gold Capped: How to make gold with enchanting originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> addonsboa-enchant-listcraftingenchantingenchanting-scrollshow-to-make-goldtradeskillmastervellumswrath-enchant-list (Basil Berntsen) Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Inventory balancing in TradeSkillMaster]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/04/gold-capped-inventory-balancing-in-tradeskillmaster/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/04/gold-capped-inventory-balancing-in-tradeskillmaster/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/08/04/gold-capped-inventory-balancing-in-tradeskillmaster/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

TradeSkillMaster is the most powerful addon used to automate crafting and batch posting, and today, we'll be learning how to fine-tune the number of items created based on your selling history. Generally, when you started using TSM, you set up a default number of items for each trade skill group that you wanted it to keep in stock. For example, I told it to:
  • Always craft enough scrolls that I had two on the auction house when they were profitable.
  • Always craft enough of each meta-gem cut to ensure that I always had three on the AH when they were profitable.
Now when I hit the Restock Queue button in enchanting or jewelcrafting, it queues up enough stock to bring my inventory levels to two scrolls or three gems. What if I invested in some recipe I sell a lot more of, though?

Continue reading Gold Capped: Inventory balancing in TradeSkillMaster

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Gold Capped: Inventory balancing in TradeSkillMaster originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> addondemandgoldgold-makinginventorypricingprofessionsqueuesupplytradeskillmastertsm (Basil Berntsen) Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Buy low, sell long]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/28/gold-capped-buy-low-sell-long/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/28/gold-capped-buy-low-sell-long/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/28/gold-capped-buy-low-sell-long/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

I've often downplayed the "buy low, sell high" aspect of the money-making game, instead focusing on using trade skills to create value and profits. There is, however, a lot to be said for brokerage. It can be much riskier but has a very good profit per hour when you win your bets. Unlike a game of cards, though, the odds are not stacked against you.

There's one key fact that can stack the odds of brokerage in your favor: People charge less for items in a trade window than others would pay on the auction house. The best strategy to take advantage of this is to buy low and sell long. Why long instead of high? They actually amount to the same thing, but the key here is that instead of immediately trying to find some buyer who will put more money into a trade window than you, you list the product on the auction house.

The auction house is the great differentiator between people looking to make a quick sale and those willing to wait for a high margin. If you see someone selling something in trade chat, chances are that no matter how much they're asking for, they're expecting a low-ball offer and are willing to sell somewhere in the middle. So what is it about the AH that makes stuff sell for more?

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Gold Capped: Buy low, sell long originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> ahauction-housebrokerbuy-lowflipgoldgold-makinggold-making-tipssell-highsell-long (Basil Berntsen) Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Meet the Bloggers: Basil "Euripides" Berntsen]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/20/meet-the-bloggers-basil-euripides-berntsen/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/20/meet-the-bloggers-basil-euripides-berntsen/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/20/meet-the-bloggers-basil-euripides-berntsen/#comments About the Bloggers introduces you to the people behind WoW Insider. You can find articles on more WI staffers in earlier About the Bloggers entries.

What do you do for WoW Insider?

I write Gold Capped. I used to write Time is Money and Insider Trader as well, but then I decided to stop trying to categorize my thoughts and simply dump them all into Gold Capped and let my editors sort it out.

What's your main?

I have exactly one level 85 character: my hunter. I raid and PVP with him, as well as use him for my alchemy and blacksmithing businesses. I will continue to have one max-level character until all the jewelcrafting dailies my JC mule does dings him 85 without having set foot outside Stormwind.

I have way too much on my plate to actually take care of my alts. For one, I hate leveling. Once you've seen it once, doing it again doesn't have enough reward to justify the time. Secondly, if I had more playtime to use, I'd use it to do more of what I already do. I could be doing 10-man extensions of my 25-man raid if I had another raid night per week, or I could do more than a rated BG now and then. Starting a second gear grind with another character isn't something that's on my radar.

Continue reading Meet the Bloggers: Basil "Euripides" Berntsen

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Meet the Bloggers: Basil "Euripides" Berntsen originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> Euripidesgoldgold-cappedhuntermeet-the-bloggerswriting (Basil Berntsen) Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: How to use trade chat to make gold]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/14/gold-capped-how-to-use-trade-chat-to-make-gold/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/14/gold-capped-how-to-use-trade-chat-to-make-gold/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/14/gold-capped-how-to-use-trade-chat-to-make-gold/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

When was the last time you saw trade chat used to actually trade more than Chuck Norris jokes? Interestingly, it can actually be used for making gold! This might be a bit of a paradigm shift, so bear with me here.

Trade chat is simultaneously one of the most overused and underused tools in our toolbox. Non-auctioneers sometimes use it almost exclusively because the addon-free auction house is intimidatingly badly designed. Gold-making pros sometimes get so wrapped up in their own business that we miss out potentially profitable chats.

So how can you use trade chat to profit?

Continue reading Gold Capped: How to use trade chat to make gold

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Gold Capped: How to use trade chat to make gold originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> ahauction-housebuyinggoldgold-makingnegotiationprofessionssellingtrade-chat (Basil Berntsen) Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: How to generate Celestial Essences]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/07/gold-capped-how-to-generate-celestial-essences/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/07/gold-capped-how-to-generate-celestial-essences/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/07/gold-capped-how-to-generate-celestial-essences/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Enchanting Cataclysm gear takes Hypnotic Dust, Celestial Essences, Heavenly Shards, and Maelstrom Crystals. I've spent the last week making and selling scrolls, and this has led to the discovery that these materials are not currently being used in the ratio they're being made. Celestial Essences are, by far, the bottleneck.

This is not a scientific fact, but I sell a lot of scrolls, and that means that my materials use is probably a representative sample of my market's actual materials use. If you simply look at all the enchants at ilvl 300 and up, the ratio of materials used will be different than if you look at a sample of actual market data. Actual market data will include the fact that some enchants sell better than others. One could, however, take a look at Wowpopular.com's enchant list and weigh each recipe by the number of stars they give it to get a general idea.

That said, let's look at the best and cheapest ways to make Celestials.

Continue reading Gold Capped: How to generate Celestial Essences

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Gold Capped: How to generate Celestial Essences originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> auction-housecarneliancarnelian-spikescelestial-essencedisenchantingenchantinggoldgold-makinghypnotic-dustscrolls (Basil Berntsen) Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Firelands crafting recipe drop rate nerfed]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/02/fireland-crafting-recipe-drop-rate-nerf/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/02/fireland-crafting-recipe-drop-rate-nerf/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/02/fireland-crafting-recipe-drop-rate-nerf/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

The recipes that drop from trash in Firelands have had their drop rate nerfed in a recent hotfix:


Hot fixes notes
The rate at which crafting recipes drop has been greatly reduced.



This makes sense from a design perspective; these patterns take some pretty rare boss drops to be made and produce gear on par with normal mode Firelands boss gear drops. On most realms, everyone who is getting the recipes is trying to sell them -- at first, for a lot; however, I've been picking them up for a tenth of what they were being listed for yesterday.

One of the interesting artifacts of this system before the nerf was that the people most likely to get the recipe were people farming reputation by doing trash runs. The people most likely to be able to craft the items were the ones in the more organized and progression-minded raiding groups. Now that the drop rate has been reduced, in a few weeks when more guilds are making it farther into the instance, it's possible that more recipes will drop into the laps of raiding guilds than trash PUGs.

Click past the jump for a list of the recipes that are affected.

Continue reading Firelands crafting recipe drop rate nerfed

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Firelands crafting recipe drop rate nerfed originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 02 Jul 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> blacksmithingchaos orbChaosOrbcraftinggoldhotfixleatherworkingliving emberLivingEmbernerfpatternsrecipesspeculationtailoring (Basil Berntsen) Sat, 02 Jul 2011 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Firelands panic sell-off]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/06/30/gold-capped-firelands-panic-sell-off/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/06/30/gold-capped-firelands-panic-sell-off/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/06/30/gold-capped-firelands-panic-sell-off/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Patch 4.2 and the Firelands raid have arrived, bringing with them an entire new tier of gear, all of which will need to be properly enchanted and gemmed. There are BOP raid drops, BOE crafted gear, BOE trash drops, and of course, tons of valor point and PVP gear. If, like me, you speculated that all this activity would result in a massive increase in demand for enchants, gems, and item enhancements, chances are you stockpiled. So, have you sold everything you bought?

I didn't. On my realm, the prices for all types of goods have fallen back to their pre-4.2 stockpiling levels. There has been a noticeable bump in certain markets like cut gems and volatiles; however, some of that may be due to a distinct reduction in miner activity over the last few months. The days of 20g Elementium Ore stacks are over, for now.

What happened to all the demand projected for patch 4.2? Should you panic sell your stock before it goes any lower?

Continue reading Gold Capped: Firelands panic sell-off

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Gold Capped: Firelands panic sell-off originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> demandgoldgold-makingpanicpatch-4.2stockpilingsupply (Basil Berntsen) Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Gold Capped: Stockpiling for patch 4.2]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/06/13/gold-capped-stockpiling-for-4-2/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/06/13/gold-capped-stockpiling-for-4-2/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/06/13/gold-capped-stockpiling-for-4-2/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Patch 4.2 is going to bring with it a whole new tier of craftable gear, all of it better than the current craftable gear. The ilvl378 gear all takes Living Embers, which are purchasable for valor points and drop from Firelands raid bosses, but the ilvl365 stuff only takes Chaos Orbs. One way or another, everyone is going to be wanting to get this stuff crafted, and that means there's an opportunity for gold makers.

If you can gather or buy the materials, crafting these and selling them on the auction house will likely be a brisk business. If you can't, though, you can still stockpile the mats now (while they're cheaper) and sell them after the patch. Let's look at the different tradeskills that will be seeing some heavier than normal demand.

Continue reading Gold Capped: Stockpiling for patch 4.2

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Gold Capped: Stockpiling for patch 4.2 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 13 Jun 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> blacksmithingbuy-listengineeringilvlinscriptionjewelcraftingleatherworkingpatch-4.2pvp-bluesstockpilingtailoringwhat-to-buy-for-patch-4.2 (Basil Berntsen) Mon, 13 Jun 2011 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider