How to earn gold by Pim

1. Do something profitable.


2. Do it a lot.

Let's go into a little more detail, shall we?

1. Do something profitable.
1a. This could be anything, but typically falls into one of three categories: reselling; farming; crafting.

2. Do it a lot.
2a. Therefore step #1 must be something that you CAN do a lot. You want sustainable income. Reselling does not qualify, since it relies on other people foolishly undervaluing their goods, and also adds no value to the goods in question. (Not so in the real world, but close enough to truth in the WoW economy.) Nevertheless, resale opportunities can be a useful way to get enough venture capital to start a real business.
2b. When I was just learning the gold-game, I used not only Auctioneer's Resale filter but also the Vendor filter. As my time got more and more valuable, I raised the minimum profit settings on each until I eventually gave up Vendor and then Resale too.

1. Do something profitable.
1a. In order to calculate profits, you'll need to know your costs, and your sale prices. Sounds simple right? It gets complicated. If you're farming, the cost is your time, and the sale prices are (probably) market average. Your income is fixed. If you're buying mats and crafting products, the mats change in price every day. You'll have to average their cost; or, use a fixed number and always buy mats below that number. The sales price may also change depending on how you value your time or how brazen you are in the face of competition.

2. Do it a lot.
2a. Therefore step #1 must be something that you CAN do a lot. Farming doesn't qualify. There isn't enough time in the day for you to become wealthy by farming. When you farm, you have access to the amount of goods that one person (you!) can farm. When you buy mats, you have access to the amount of goods that the ENTIRE SERVER has farmed.

1. Do something profitable.
1a. Buy mats, craft a finished product that's worth more than the mats, sell the product.

2. Do it a lot.
2a. Selling a lot of products means there must be demand for a lot of products. Luckily, pretty much everything in the game is consumable. Potions, enchants, even typical "non-consumables" like armor and weapons all get used and then discarded. Choose what you will sell based on your professions, or just your preferences.
2b. There isn't enough demand for any one thing, for you to get rich quick doing just one thing. But, this guide isn't about getting rich quick. It's just some free advice.
2c. Selling a lot of products means a lot of deposit fees and AH commissions eating into your profits. Inscription and Enchanting minimize deposit costs, but nothing can reduce the 5% AH commission. Don't forget to take that into account.

1. Do something profitable.
1a. How much profit is enough? I use a thumbrule of mats+20% for my minimum bid. Combined with the 5% commission, that gives me a minimum of 14% profit (1.2*.95). From what I've seen, I am very conservative in this regard, and most people use a higher value.

2. Do it a lot.
2a. If you choose a fallback price which is too high, more people will ignore your auctions and go to Trade chat instead with their cries of "Duh Looking for enchanter plz LOL duh!!1!". Use a reasonable profit margin and you will get many more people buying your junk instantly from the AH, instead of wasting time in trade chat. Better to have 10 sales at 40% markup than 2 sales at 100% markup. Better for you, better for your customers.

1. Do something profitable.
1a. As time goes by, I have realized that the point of the gold game isn't to earn gold, it's to do something useful. Earning gold is an absolutely necessary byproduct of your useful activities; because if you're not profitable, you can't sustain yourself, and your business will end.

2. Do it a lot.
2a. The more power you accrue, the more stuff you can do. Time is the limiting factor.

THE END

Hope this helps!

"But Pim," you say, "it's utterly impossible for everyone to follow your advice. No one would farm, and then the crafters would have no mats."

I'm here to tell you that it's right and good that society should be divided into classes. It's the way of our culture (and all cultures for the last 7,000 years or so) that the resources of many are controlled by the few. In WoW terms we call this "focus fire." IRL, it allows us (as a society) to put tremendous resources toward a singular goal, and accomplish the impossible (which is why this "next step" in macro-evolution utterly defeated the old societies in which everybody was good at everything and nothing was done without consensus).

Of course, as is the way of all evolution, with differentiation comes the opportunity to dissociate. When people began to specialize, it became possible to over-specialize, and many people could no longer survive on their own, without the support of the rest of society. Also, when people are specialized into resources and those who control the resources, then the (some of the) controllers dissociate and begin slavery (whether by violence, as of old, or by economic force, as of today).

What was my point? Oh yeah. Specialization is right and good. Don't overdo it. No wait, that wasn't it.

Oh yeah. Why would I offer advice that I know would bring Draka's industry to a grinding halt if everyone tried to follow it? Because I know that my advice is not for everyone. Only those who are ready will listen to it. If it doesn't speak to you, then it isn't for you.

Farming is right and good! Especially if you enjoy it. Honor farming for instance, you can hardly go wrong with that. Farming dungeons for emblems to buy orbs, or just the daily randoms with your alts to buy primordial saronite, all these things have a very respectable gold per hour ratio. Not super, but perfectly acceptable for most people.

Remember, gold is only as valuable as the things you can buy with it. It isn't the gold you want, it's those things. Time, on the other hand, is much more precious than gold. Enjoy your time both in the World of Warcraft, and out!

It's good to see that you've left your communist roots behind, but moving from one end of the see-saw to the other isn't exactly sound financial advice, even in a totally free market economy such as WOW is.

You're ignoring some simple principles in an effort to chase immediate wealth. Don't feel bad. Wall Street has recently been forced to re-embrace these same principles after forgetting how immutable they are:

1. Assets are finite.

When a flower appears in WOW, it is plucked. This has negative and positive connotations. You addressed the negative, but you neglected the positive. Since no apple stays on the ground for long in WOW, if you choose to participate in the gathering profession, you enter a free market in which your apple has guaranteed value, so long as the goods created by that apple hold value. It has a symbiotic relationship with the goods used to create it with one important advantage: It is protected from fluctuating wildly in value by it's limited global quantity.

Your advice to stay out of this market and buy this resource from farmers is especially circumstantial in a world where every resource is already being gathered to the capacity of the world to provide it. Each new player in the "buy mats and sell crafted goods game" shifts the balance of available resources vs. goods created with those resources and reduces the value of the good they are creating. You are effectively advising people to drive up the cost of the very materials they will rely on to make profit and engage in a price war with other crafters (crafting items do not have a built in stabilizer, like materials do, other than the availability of the materials - this is a second hand benefit greatly reduced by its, well, second handedness).

2. When you follow an economy, you reap the rewards of the bubble, and you suffer the consequences of the crash.

I happen to know that you tie up a fair amount of your available capitol in trying to "time the markets." I also happen to know that you have taken some fairly large hits when expansion day rolls around because of unused inventory that has lost it's value over night.

When you get into the business of buying mats on the AH, and selling crafted goods back, the urge to maximise your profits is fairly irresistable, and when dispencing this sort of advice, you should always include mention of the risk that you could lose it all over night, if blizzard decides to secretly patch a new Staff That is Way Better Than the Staff Pim is Currently Crafting for Profit which is created by using large amounts of Wood That Isn't the Same Kind of Wood Pim Has Been Buying in Bulk to Make his Staff of Instant Obsoleteness. Even wall street bankers know to add this caveat into their sales pitches.

Fortunately, Blizzard allows you to directly trade your time for gold (The real world has something like this too. It's called getting a job. You should look into it). Now, I've been out of the game for a while, but back in the day, I was knocking out 25 dailies in about 2 hours. I had pretty great gear, but I was still a prot warrior. On days when I was too busy to do 25, I had a "budget" 10 dailies picked out that I could do in less than a half hour. Again, I've been out of the game for a while, but that was a pretty nice return for my time invested, and I was able to accumulate and unqualified fortune basically just taking the free gold Blizzard was willing to hand over to me for my time.

Don't chase easy fortune. Work hard, spend less than you make, and plan for the future. Advice that served me well for 5 years in WOW and 35 years of "fake WOW."

It's been a while, this troll must have been very hungry! Odd, I couldn't tell from the pictures that Mamatank was a troll... where are the tusks?

Anyhoo, it was very good, I actually didn't realize the whole thing was flamebait until after I read it a second time. But, to my credit, the first time I was in a hurry and had to leave before analyzing.

Allow me to reply in the manner to which you're accustomed.

papatank wrote:

QUOTE:
You're ignoring some simple principles in an effort to chase immediate wealth. Don't feel bad. Wall Street has recently been forced to re-embrace these same principles after forgetting how immutable they are:

For anyone who doesn't speak troll, I'll translate:
"You suck. Don't feel bad."
Since I suck, you're better than me. Therefore I respect you. And you don't want me to feel bad? That's so kind and thoughtful! I'll listen to what you have to say.
"Wall Street blah blah blah."
WOW you name-dropped something from REAL LIFE. You must know what you're talking about.

papatank wrote:

QUOTE:
1. Assets are finite.

Thanks MOTO. Here's the problem with your argument, first your assumption is false; and second, even if it were true, your conclusion is wrong.

papatank wrote:

QUOTE:
When a flower appears in WOW, it is plucked. ...in a world where every resource is already being gathered to the capacity of the world to provide it.

I don't know how it is in Aeon or Aion or whatever fruity world it is in which you most recently lived, but the apples in WoW do stay on the ground for quite some time. Otherwise a person entering the farming profession would be entering an already saturated jobplace where the amount of available work is already distributed among so many workers that the available work has reached its finite limit.

In other words, on Draka, adding another farmer means that more assets are generated per hour on Draka.

papatank wrote:

QUOTE:
Your advice to stay out of this market and buy this resource from farmers is especially circumstantial in a world where ...

See, this is the sort of statement that gives away your trollish nature to your audience. I encourage you to look up "circumstantial" in the dictionary so that you can avoid this sort of mistake again. But hey, don't feel bad.

papatank wrote:

QUOTE:
Each new player in the "buy mats and sell crafted goods game" shifts the balance of available resources vs. goods created with those resources and reduces the value of the good they are creating. You are effectively advising people to drive up the cost of the very materials they will rely on to make profit and engage in a price war with other crafters

This is the exact same thing as your advice to become a farmer, driving down the price of the materials they farm, and engaging in price wars with other farmers. Admonishing me for something you did not even a paragraph ago? There's a word for that: troll.

papatank wrote:

QUOTE:
(Crafting items do not have a built in stabilizer, like materials do, other than the availability of the materials ...

Crafting does have a built in stabilizer: no crafter will stay in business if s/he is not making a profit. Farming does not have a built in stabilizer: materials do not have innate value except their vendor price. Their real value only exists in the presence of crafters, and customers.

papatank wrote:

QUOTE:
...this is a second hand benefit greatly reduced by its, well, second handedness).

Again with the pseudo-economic nonsensical crap!

papatank wrote:

QUOTE:
2. When you follow an economy, you reap the rewards of the bubble, and you suffer the consequences of the crash.

I happen to know that you tie up a fair amount of your available capitol in trying to "time the markets." I also happen to know that you have taken some fairly large hits when expansion day rolls around because of unused inventory that has lost it's value over night.

Sounds like you needed to hear my advice years ago. You should have stayed out of the resale game and stuck with production. I'm sorry your personal experiences (aka miserable failures) soured you on the economic aspect of the game.

The fact is, any time the market changes, whether it be bubble or crash, there is opportunity to profit. If you failed to take advantage and suffered the "consequences" like every other schmoe, that doesn't mean the game is flawed. It means YOUFAIL.

papatank wrote:

QUOTE:
When you get into the business of buying mats on the AH, and selling crafted goods back, the urge to maximise your profits is fairly irresistable,

I'll bet you're one of those people whom I would battle on the AH, selling my goods for a reasonable markup, and you trying to monopolize, buying them out and relisting them for 400%. Shame on you.

But hey, don't feel bad. It would take a real genius to figure out that you can't monopolize a market in which the product can be manufactured in mere seconds with virtually unlimited supply (the mats of the entire server at my command). You're not a genius are you? No of course not. It isn't your fault you were born the way you are. You're just unlucky. That's all. All you need is more gear and then you'll be LEET. If only those greedy gold-buying jerks would run you through some more raids....

papatank wrote:

QUOTE:
Fortunately, Blizzard allows you to directly trade your time for gold ... back in the day, I was knocking out 25 dailies in about 2 hours.

Back in those days, I did the same thing because I too, didn't know any better. But I learned.

Seriously, DAILIES?! The only activity with a worse gold per hour ratio is killing mobs for their handfuls of silver.

papatank wrote:

QUOTE:
Don't chase easy fortune. Work hard, spend less than you make, and plan for the future.

Like any good troll, there is a bit of truth thrown in, especially right at the end.

Learning to craft instead of farm is not easy. It is a much more mental task, and it requires a complicated infrastructure of bag space, mailbox, and the auction house. It took me quite a while to learn all the things I've learned. I'm now 75% of the way to the gold cap and that's without slowing down my spending on not only mammoths, but also crafted gear.

The most important thing I've learned is that gold only has value when you use it to buy the things you want.

Have fun!

I never recommended farming mats over crafting. I simply pointed out that gathering mats has an upside of far more limited risk than crafting. I didn't talk about the downside of farming because you had already discussed it.

My recommendation was to build guaranteed income by questing; a recommendation that I stand by. Although my repair costs were fairly substantial during WOTLK (300g/day 5 days a week), I was able to stay well ahead of them by doing dailies as time allowed. I limited my costs by fishing for my buff food, selling unused fish, and buying flask mats in bulk when a deal became available. Did I get rich? No. But I never wanted for money.

If you have become wealthy by day trading, then I commend you on that. I'm tempted to ask you what the value of your gold stack is (Part of the reason I didn't engage in more risky money making schemes was because I correctly estimated my medium and long term financial needs), but reaching the gold cap is as worthy a goal as any in a video game, I suppose. My gripe is that you are recommending that other people follow your lead. Just because there is anecdotal evidence of people striking it rich with the stock market, doesn't mean that everyone who attempts it will succeed.

My advice is to evaluate your financial needs, and meet those needs with the lowest risk possible. For most people, that means find a set of dailies that you find acceptable and punch that time card.

QUOTE:
If only those ... would run you through some more raids....

Screw you.