GoldMaking – Page 2 – Girl Goblin

Weekly Wrap Up [Dec19-Dec26]

It’s the last weekly wrap up for 2022! Unfortunately it looks like the TSM ledger is displaying some weirdness, so the stats are not exactly reliable (how do I have almost 500k in sales, 150k in purchases, and come out behind 299k? I am not sure). Despite what that chart says, gold IS going up! This week was a bit slower because of the holidays (and let’s face it, I’ve been playing a huge amount of Dwarf Fortress instead of WoW) but I still found myself having a lot of fun. What sold?

The Dragonflight version of Rhinestone sunglasses have been doing pretty well for me! They’re cheap in cost to make (material wise) and I fished up the recipe very early on. I sold 3 this week, less than the 5 I sold last week but that’s OK. This week I didn’t have any huge expenses like fish for faction. I did buy an ace of earth to boost the ilevel of an alt, but even that was sitting under 30k. I also bought some fish to work on cooking but with everyone home and playing, the prices have been manageable.

Sales I didn’t expect? I’ve actually had a LOT of those.

My tailor made 52k in sales – and none of it was from Dragonflight. She has been selling old world bags, and they have been flying off of the rack. I didn’t expect people to buy them but I sure am glad they did!

TSM is still not working for Dragonflight quality items, but it works perfectly fine for old world items and there’s still a lot of buyers out there! You might recall that I recently moved OFF of one of my low population servers to a medium/high pop – and it was a fantastic decision. I’m so happy playing where I am now. It’s a bit awkward at times for farming (feast, I’m looking at you) so I tend to invite my character back over with my 2nd account to phase to a quieter area, but for the majority of my game time, the change has been awesome.

I haven’t found a home there yet, but I’m taking my time and not immediately jumping into anything.

Yes, it was a great week for World of Warcraft, and now that all 4 of my main crafters have reached 70, I can focus on setting them up properly. So far I’ve done very little Dragonflight crafting. That isn’t a problem for me though. You might recall I also never bothered to get into Shadowlands legendary crafting – and I was still able to make gold. Sure, I’m not making billions, but again for the time invested I’m pretty happy.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Weekly Wrap Up [Dec12-Dec19]

This week the ledger painted a much nicer picture, but I still ended up 500,000 gold in debt thanks to fish. I decided to splurge! I bought 10 WoW tokens when they were 150k, and I also bought 100,000 fish to turn in to the Tuskarr folks, climbing from renown 13 to 24. I did also make a lot of sales, earning 1.3 million gold overall. It just wasn’t enough to offset my costs of 1.9 million. Probably the most gold I have spent in a very long time.

I don’t spend a lot of gold. I don’t find myself needing too much and I’m not an end game player so there hasn’t been a reason. I’m sure I can earn this back over the next little while, but it will take some time.

My best sellers this week continue to be Darkmoon cards which I get from fishing, fish, and way up there almost at the top are the Dragonflight ‘Rhinestone’ sunglasses. I got the recipe pretty early on, and I sell a pair or two a day for 20-25k each. The craft cost to these is pretty low, and a few other people have them on my server as well, but I’m thankful for the little bit of coin I get.

I’ve also gone back and started restocking old world materials again. Bags in particular have been HUGE sellers. I’ve even been selling embersilk bags of all things. I don’t know who is buying it (or why) but it’s interesting to me since they’re 22 slots, and sell for just over 2k each. Is it the colour, maybe? They’re a lovely pink shade.

Whatever the reason, the sales have been steady enough that I decided to keep stocking them. Blacksmithing hasn’t been selling nearly as well, but I’m still listing items. I know Dragonflight items tend to sell for the lowest possible price since there are just so many people crafting right now, and I’m only too happy to melt back to older professions to see what people are interested in. With the announcement that grey/white transmog items are becoming BOE (headed to the PTR soon) I expect that people might be out there rounding out their collections.

I’ve heard a lot of people upset about the difficulties they’re having in making gold due to abc123 reason and I just want to say that making gold is very much possible no matter what server you’re on. You may need to adjust your expectations (I see goblins making millions a second, I am not one of those people), you may need to find your niche (ie: don’t follow the throngs of people aimed at a particular crafting spec), you may need to diversify, and you may need alts – but it is absolutely still fantastic gold making out there. Don’t give up.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

[Casual] Road to 10 Million – COMPLETED!

For the past 146 days, I’ve been running my ‘road to 10 million’ challenge, where I earned gold on a low population server, and attempted to make gold cap within a 1 year time frame. I figured this would be a fairly casual endevour, and I just wanted to prove to people that you can make gold anywhere. That holds true even more today than in the past, thanks to the region wide commodity auction house.

Today I completed that goal on my first server – yay! The graph shows some interesting things. The very first gigantic rise was when I bought a number of Shadowlands raid items to my low population server. I sold them at a hefty profit and then things tapered out a bit again. I played maybe 20 minutes a day, mostly just restocking my auction house character and looking for deals to buy every once in a while.

Most of my gold came from fishing (Dragonflight), and Strange Goop (Shadowlands). It was never huge amounts, but it was constant on a weekly basis. Then on November 28th Dragonflight released, and sales spiked. Most of my sales after the release have been fish & recipes. I have no level 70s on this server, and no crafters. I’m incredibly pleased that I managed to reach 10 million gold with (what I consider to be) very little effort.

Tips? BE CONSISTENT. You can’t make gold if you’re bouncing all over the place never invested in anything at all. I don’t make millions in a single day, but I am pretty consistent. It adds up.

Stop FOMO (fear of missing out). Unless you’re the VERY FIRST to hit a new gold making method, maybe don’t follow the crowds. Yes, we would all love to have jumped on the crimson combat recipe / gear train, but by the time most of us hear about those things, they are no longer the profit they once were. It does not matter what everyone else is doing to make gold. Find what YOU like to do, and find your niche from there.

Have fun. If it becomes work, or you’re just not having fun, don’t do it. If it’s stressful, don’t do it. This is a video game, and we all have real life obligations that we like to escape from. Making gold should be something that is fun and shouldn’t add stress to your life. I realize that’s easier said than done, especially if you rely on a token to continue playing, but your time is valuable. Do something you enjoy.

What’s next now that I’ve reached 10 million? I haven’t decided quite yet. My other low population server is at just over 8 million gold, so I’m thinking I will focus there next, and then when I’ve reached gold cap on two servers, I’ll probably start a new challenge. Since raiding and M+ is something I’ve never really been able to do (whether it’s because of my available time or because of my health issues) I might end up buying some boosts. In the meantime I’m just happy with my casual progress.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Is it Worth It?

I get asked this question at least once a day – “Is fishing worth it” – and I always give the same answer. Your idea of ‘worth it’ and mine are going to be very different. Fishing is very RNG based in Dragonflight, which is part of the reason, but there’s deeper reasons to why there’s no one answer to these questions. I can’t answer whether or not something is worth it for someone else, because I have no idea what their criteria is.

I have multiple sclerosis and during a relapse (which I’m just going through the tail end of now) my eyes and my hands don’t function as they should. I usually use apps to read text to me and to type for me. Fishing (and pet battles) are two World of Warcraft activities that I can still partake in because they require minimal hand movement (and because fishing has sounds). Making gold is about consistency. The activity I choose to do rarely matters, but being consistent does matter. For me, fishing is worth it. I’m making anywhere from 150k-1 million gold a day depending on which recipes drop and how fish are selling. I usually do pet battles with my main account in the meantime. Looking at text, reading the auction house, having to move my character around, these are awkward for me a lot of the time, so I am incredibly thankful that there are some activities I can still do that don’t put a strain on my body. When I’m able to, I get back to the auction house, gathering, crafting, and all of that good stuff. Some months are better than others.

The point of this is – stop asking someone else if abc123 activity is “worth it” – take the information provided, and make an education guess at whether or not it will be worth it FOR YOU. Maybe even try it for a little while. You can decide for yourself whether something is enjoyable enough / profitable enough for you to continue doing it – or you can move on to something better.

We’re Selling Fish – Why?

This is why I love to lurk in the WoW Economy discord. Someone came into the farming channel yesterday and mentioned that the repeatable catch & release quest was rewarding faction – it had never rewarded faction on retail before. It used to reward faction on beta, but that was removed, and never carried over for the release.

I immediately jumped up and purchased as much fish under 25g as I could buy, raised my Tuskar faction, and then sold whatever I had left over. It was glorious. Sure, I was out a few hundred thousand gold, but grinding Tuskar reputation has never been fun for me, and I managed to unlock a bunch of recipes I needed.

The price of fish will continue to fall, but it should remain higher than it has been as people want to round out their renown. It is 10,000 fish for an entire level of renown, if you’re paying 25g each that’s 250,000g per renown level. If you’re close to a specific tier you want, or you’ve just got a LOT of gold, 250k for a level isn’t exactly *that* bad. Of course everyone is going to have their own opinions on that one.

I’ve been in the middle of a multiple sclerosis relapse, so I’ve been doing a lot of fishing (it’s the easiest thing for my hands, my hands don’t function well during a relapse). I wish I had of held on to it for moments like this, but it couldn’t be planned, we had no way of knowing the reputation would be turned on. Still, it’s a neat example of how gold making changes and is fluid. The price of fish at one point was 150g (for the green ones, they reward more faction).

Did you take advantage of the sales or were you one of the many who were going after Tuskar reputation?

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Don’t Forget your Knowledge – Darkmoon Faire Profession Quests

If you’re anything like me, you’ve completely forgotten that the Darkmoon faire was this week, and you’re scrambling around trying to figure out what you need to do. If you’re leveling up in Dragonflight you NEED to do the profession quests! They grant knowledge. Don’t forget to do this. Also, be prepared. Here’s a list of items you’ll need depending on your profession.

Cooking: 5 simple flour
Inscription: 5 light parchment
Alchemy: 5 moonberry juice, 5 fizzy faire drink
Tailoring: 1 coarse thread, 1 red dye, 1 blue dye
Leatherworking: 5 coarse thread, 5 blue dye, 10 shiny bauble
Archaeology: 15 fossil archaeology fragment

The other crafts / gathering have no requirements.

It’s Time for a Change

I’ve been playing on two low pop servers for years now. The first one is my ‘home’ server, and I played there with a group of friends along with my husband. Over the years people moved on, and my husband stopped playing. About two years after he stopped playing I moved my characters to another low pop server to play with more friends.

I’m sure you can see how this story goes, most of them also moved on – which is OK, it’s expected and I would never be angry at anyone for doing what was in their best interest but it did leave me with a bit of a predicament. After spending a few months debating it and thinking about it I finally decided that it was time to move to a server with a higher population.

I want to be able to raid, I want to be able to pay for boosts with gold, I want to see people around and I want a robust server that can offer me more than what my low population servers offer. With the addition of a region wide auction house (for items that stack) it became less of a concern about ‘where’ I play for gold making purposes.

The thing is, I’m nervous about this move. I’ve got no experience at all making gold on a server with a higher population. I’m not sure I can even adapt, or how long it will take me. I do know it’s time. Today is the day. I purchased a bundle of 6 character transfers, and I’m currently in the process of moving my main and some alts. I want my crafters together, after all. At least I can pay for it with gold.

Will I be successful? As long as I’m having fun, that will be a success. I’m really enjoying my time in Dragonflight, and I can’t wait to experience everything it has to offer. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Weekly Wrap Up [Nov28-Dec5]

Well, TSM had some difficulties tracking my sales this week (seems like ranked harvested material wasn’t tracking in sales, but it did track in purchases) so this week I’m doing my wrap up a bit different since I can’t rely on that data. Instead of showing my overall gains for the week across all servers, I’m just showing the two servers where I have my ‘road to 10 million’ challenge running. I’ll hopefully get back to regular wrap ups next week, but that depends on TSM.

Gold this week! It’s flowing, but you have to know when and where to invest. The better you know your server and how the market works, the more gold you’ll make. Useless information, I know. There’s no secret recipe. On one of my ‘road to 10 million’ servers I made 1,200,000 gold this week. I did not craft. I did not mine / herb / skin. I did fish. I did sell patterns, cards, and packs of soggy cards. I did make a few Darkmoon decks as aces quickly started falling. There were zero decks for sale on my server, and I priced them to move while still giving me a comfortable profit. Remember I’m on two low pop servers (most of the time) so my sale tactics will usually NOT carry over to your server! This is why I say you have to know where you’re selling.

My second server saw gains of 587,000 gold for the week. This server is more quiet, though both are low pop. The first server is an RP server, so there’s more people collecting recipes there. The second server tends to languish behind in almost everything. I bought one crimson combat recipe for 25k, and flipped it for 50k in the early morning to someone who has been trying to flip it for 100k but it hasn’t sold yet. The gear is also just sitting on the AH unpurchased. I’m very happy with my gains considering I didn’t craft, and I just fished on an alt here and there while playing through the quest content (slowly, I’m only on the 4th zone and I just started).

I know there are goblins out there making millions in gold. I admire their attitudes towards gold making, and I certainly learn a lot by lurking in the WoW Economy discord and watching various chats. You might wonder why I’m not out there ice fishing with the masses because those are some pretty lucrative fish farms – and the truth of the matter is I prefer getting the recipes (I’ve been after the rhinestone glasses and FINALLY got them to drop today) and just approaching things in a very casual way. I use other goblins as motivation, admiration, inspiration. It’s not competition (to me). I’m a small player, but again when I consider time invested vs. gold acquired, I’m happy.

I keep seeing people talking in chat complaining that the gold making method they attempted yesterday is only paying 1/2 that amount today – this is simply how making gold works. It’s FAST and LOTS at the beginning, and then it drops, until it stabilizes (vendorsell is a nice floor for that). I think players need to drop their gold per hour expectations slightly. Region wide does mean things don’t sell for nearly as much as they used to – but they certainly sell faster. How is your gold making going? Anything you wish you’d done different? I hope to get into crafting eventually (I did start LW and JC, but I’m only at 50 on each of those) but I’m honestly not in any sort of rush. That’s one of the great things about making gold. There’s no ONE way to do it, and you can almost always find a method that suits your play style.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

[Unpopular Opinion] FOMO is what motivates goldmaking

With the release of Dragonflight everyone is looking for ‘the next big thing’ to sell on the auction house to players – before it gets nerfed. Maybe you were doing seed farms – nerfed. Maybe you were working up that crafting faction – nerfed (and apparently some ban waves along with that one). What I’m seeing a lot of in the WoW Economy discord is one person mentioning an awesome thing they’ve found – and then some people jumping right on that where they can, and then it slowly grows until a large portion are doing it and then it becomes less valuable.

The FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is VERY strong at the beginning of an expansion. How many people wanted to dive right into Darkmoon Decks, investing millions of gold right from the get-go. Apparently that one isn’t paying off quite the way people expected, but I imagine December 12th may tell a different tale.

I love watching the conversations that happen at the start of a new expansion. Everyone is excited, and everyone is branching off in a million different directions. Some pay off, some don’t. Some are temporary gains, some are long term. Whatever your decision, the FOMO seems to hang overhead, just slightly out of reach. When you see other people doing something to make gold, YOU want to do that thing too. It’s almost instinctive.

The community I belong to has been pretty open and honest about their gold making methods, and that’s just another reason I love it. There’s no animosity, and while there IS competition, it’s a more good natured flavour than anything else. I’m reminding myself to keep the FOMO at bay, I don’t play on a high pop server where these sales are happening, and I don’t have the time to dedicate to owning the market. Still, when you see the millions rolling in, it’s hard NOT to want to be a part of that.

Weekly Wrap Up [Nov21-Nov28]

I spent the week relaxing and not doing much of anything at all, which absolutely shows in my gold making graph for this week. I have two strange goops that have been sitting and not selling, and I basically spent any game time I had working on leveling up my alts. I didn’t want to craft a lot of new gear (though it is absolutely still selling) and I ended up buying a bunch of stuff that I probably shouldn’t have bought.

It happens.

I found some darkmoon relic transmog for sale that was pretty cheap, a pet that I ended up taking a loss on because of my auction strings (fixed now, but still, it was a 75k mistake) and bits and bobs that I decided to pick up for whatever reason. Yes, it was a slow week – and I’m OK with that. Like I said, I spent the majority of my time this week leveling up alts and just relaxing before Dragonflight.

What does my plan look like going forward? I’m not one of those players who swaps professions every expansion, I tend to collect recipes, so I have a main set of four characters available who will work on faction. This expansion I’ve decided to go with my Demon Hunter as a main, she’s sporting JC and LW.

Alts include my paladin (Alch/BS), my monk (Eng/Insc), my priest (Tailor/Ench) and then two alts for gathering (a druid and an invoker). Since I cover all the main professions on four characters, those will be the ones working faction. The gathering characters will be more relaxed. Then I have a handful of other characters who can pick up crafting on a whim if that’s what I want / need. I don’t really like to min/max every single aspect of gameplay, and I haven’t settled down on a main in many expansions, so I think this list keeps me close to my goals and gives me the ability to diversify my product. We’ll just have to see how it goes.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!