Real ID- Friend or Foe?

Yeah, I know. RealID has been around for a bit. I have only recently got into using RealID (around a month now) and have seen a few issues. 

With this platform, there are good and bad things that are happening....From what I have seen, the bad is outweighing the good, but I am wondering how it affects ya'll on your servers. Don't get me wrong, there are some great things about it for friends across different servers (or those that play SC as apposed to WoW), but it's absolute death for some of my fellow readers that are AH'ers....

Here's the situations that alot of folks fall into:

"My guild made me set up RealID due to me being an officer."

"My friends on my server had me set it up, so we can chat easier, we are in different guilds"

"As a part of being in my guild, one requirement is RealID'ing everyone of the officers"

Drag. The bitch about using RealID is tenfold, but the main issue is you can no longer "hide" when selling goods in the AH. No alts to sell your stuffs. Everyone knows your toons. Big, big drag. We don't want this. If you are competing against your guildies in the AH, it's one thing. It's worse when you can't even "hide" in game (not that I recommend that anyways, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, right?).

On the other hand, this can be a positive thing, for the same reasons listed above. I really don't have to say it again, do I? Didn't think so....re-read the paragraph if you aren't seeing my point.

Does this bother your AH sales? Have you even looked? Is there any way to get out of it (RealID) without looking like a hater? For the guild folks, is having RealID affect you? What are you doing to work around it?

On the flipside, how does this affect you without knowing? 

Good or Bad Advice? How Can You Tell?

There are quite a few gold blogs out there. We all know that. They have a ton of information they give out, we all are aware of that. Do you listen? Do you use the tools that we provide to you? Or do you just read the information provided, toss it in the back of your head, and then a few weeks later wish you would have used it? Hmm.... I know I am guilty of this (see the alchemy disenchant a while back for Maelstroms).

I am asking this because we all talk a big game, on things that we do or have done that makes us gold. I know I try to give you my side of the WoW gold game, so you can prosper in this "game within a game". Have I given you bad advice? I would like to think no. Have I given you good advice? Well, I do my best to try to write my posts to make you think. I try to make posts that are not "server" dependant. Of course, due to my style, some things fall into that niche.

But working with many folks on many servers, I see that most markets flow from server to server. Be it the "small" low population server, the "mid" server, and the high population servers. This will probably get some hate, but experience doesn't lie. We sell the same goods, we use the same mats to craft, we have the same dungeons, the same heroics, the same locations, well, I can go on and on, but I think you get my point.

When bloggers cover information, we "kinda" always assume that there will be comments. Sometimes there are, other times there aren't. I for one like to read other folks blogs, and try to comment when I can, especially if I am agreeing or disagreeing with a certain "arguement" that they present to the masses. As a gold blogger, as a gold maker, and as a experienced AH PvP'er, I am stubborn in what I know makes gold in the game, and if I disagree with X blogger, I try to give my two cents.

Not to start a fight or hate on them, just to explain why I do not agree with their post. I for one know that alot of time is invested into blogging, and if you blog, it's your blog, and I don't want to take that away. If you feel the need to delete a comment of mine, so be it (this has recently happened, a few times to be exact). Some folks don't like to be called out, but at least they see my comment before it does get tossed in the trash...

I really enjoy when I hear something new that I haven't heard about. Lately, it's just the same ol', same ol' that is repeated over....and over.....and over. It gets bland.

Now enough of my rambling on, the second part of the title of this post is "How can you tell?". Well, that's the tough part. The way I try to explain my information allows you to search your AH to see if it's profitable on your server before you jump feet first. Although I do write an occasional "stockpile" post, I try to explain how I come to that conclusion so you can see exactly what and where I come from. You can once again use that information to see if the advice I toss your way is valid for you: both on your server and with your bankroll.

Now I do have a tagline at the top of my page, The Worst WoW Blog Ever, but I am confident in what I post for ya'll, and that you will make a nice chunk of gold in this little game called World of Warcraft.

Now I gotta ask....Do I give good or bad advice? How did you tell? Have I made you more gold than I lost you? Have I coached you? Have I helped you on IRC, JMTC Fridays, Emails, or Skype? How did it work out? Holler out, let me know. 

I would really appreciate it, as sometimes bloggers just need a little nudge to keep writing...so nudge me.

Glyph "Auto Auction" Bot - What I Now Know...

Here is a HUGE issue as of late that is extremely frustrating to deal with, the AH Glyph bot.

I have just recently started "fighting" with one, and regrettably, I have very little defense. I am working on finding ways to work around them, and as of yet, I have found little that works, other than using....cough....blizzard tickets, which I have seen absolutely nothing in return.

This bot, well, they are undercutting me (every 10 minutes to be exact), are hard to fight....if you are in the same situation, you know what I mean.

I first hoped that I just had a wow addict on my hands. Then I realized there must be some automation involved. I did not see this toon show up anywhere. Really. No where. Gone. Cancel their auctions, repost undercutting me. Jeeezus. Talk about total frustration...... 

So after some "homework" to find out more about how they work (so I can decipher how to beat these things), I got some information, and what I found was disturbing. Here's a few clips from an article on them...

" It provides automatic buying, bidding, selling and undercuting for the World of Warcraft auction house. On top of providing a quick easy way to buy and sell items, it includes a method called "baiting" which will take advantage of undercutters to net you more items at the prices you want!"

"XXXXXX runs without the use of the World of Warcraft client, it is nearly impossible for the program to be detected. The program uses your browser to navigate the Remote Auction House the same way any human would. Since the program started there have been no bans as a result of using this software, and it is unlikely there ever will be."

 Those are fairly huge claims, huh? Now a fellow blogger (remind me if it's you) posted a while back about getting a "AH botter" banned, but in that case, they were using a toon in game, which is another program all together. The part that gets me is.....this is all done by remote. You don't even have to be in the game. So therefore no "watch" by Blizzard.

Now before I toss my laptop across the room, I am going to calm down. I am still getting sales here and there, but..... I am losing. It's extremely hard for me to say this as I feel that no matter what I have seen on the market, I have prevailed in one sense of the word or another. But I am losing. There. I said it again.

I am going to keep diving deeper into how I can beat these, and you can bet that when I find something, I will holler. For right now, I have to say our only defense is offense.....

And one last thing on this.....a quote from the author of one of these hated programs.

"Sorry for the lack of updates the past couple weeks. I have been extremely busy with school and just completed my last final. I am going to start working on adding new features and fixing any bugs you guys have reported. The next update should include the ability to limit the amount of items purchased as well as a few other features. Stay tuned as I will post updates in my progress."

Great.....other features? Blizz, if you somehow read this, please do something, this can and will destroy your game. Not only for me, but others as well. Just read your forums:

Glyph Bot Strikes Again
You Win Auction House Bots

"Help! I Can't Make Gold" --- Selling on the Auction House

Ugh. You know what? This is something I have seen and heard quite a bit over my blogging "career". If it isn't those exact words, it's something near: "I was making gold, and lately, I just have too much competition" or "I got bullied out of "X" market". There's many of them. You know what I say to that? One question, simply answered.

No, it isn't "oh, go do this, pick up this, grab these mats, craft this, post at this time and at this price" or something to that affect, which, although it is good advice, but no advice helps if you don't do one thing.....

I have coached near a dozen folks over the past month, I have assisted people with answering questions in emails, on skype (altosgoldishadvice), through twitter messages (@altosgold), a bit here and there in IRC, basically everywhere, and the number one issue that people have with making gold can be answered by one simple statement.....

I can hear you now. "CMON ALTO, GET TO THE POINT!". Great! I like your enthusiasm. Now use it. The number one issue folks have with making gold is......Auctions. Not that they are getting undercut, not that they are only posting once (or twice) a day, not that the materials cost is too high, but the issue is that they do not post auctions. Easy huh? Mos definitely. Do me a favor. Check TuJ (if you are US) and search yourself. How many active auctions do you have? 5, 10, 100, 500? 1000?

Ok. now, check your personal bank. If you have one, check your personal guild bank(s). What do you see? Schtuff? Probably. And alot of it. Why are you not selling it? Why are you not using the items in there to craft and sell? Ok, you might have some stockpile of XX item(s), but my point is why are you not listing them? And don't give me the "They don't sell" or "They cost too much to list" answers. Not a good enough excuse. I don't buy it (see the pun there?).

Ok, ok. You are wondering if this makes a difference. I keep a contant 4-600 auctions on this toon (shown below). For those unfamiliar, the top is when I post, the bottom is sales.

As you can see here, you need to keep a constant supply in the auction house to get consistent sales. Other than a few blips here and there (and server downtime), I basically have sales every hour of every day....and I am not on 24/7, I am not always undercutting, I am not always canceling and reposting (with the exception of glyphs here and there). I just keep things in the AH. Simple as that.

Or are you the type that gets into a market, sells a few here and there, gets into another market, and forgets about the first one? Probably. Alot of us fall into that, and I admit that it happens to me as well. But it happens. Dust off your shoulders, get back in.

Once again, this is so simple. But it's the simple things we forget about the most, and this is one of the traps that we all fall into, and it really disrupts our "goldflow". I will leave you with a thought:

"If you don't have it in the AH, there is no sale. Someone else is getting gold because you are slacking. You need to always have something posted. Always. If you can afford it, always have two of them in the AH. If one sells while you are away (sleeping/working/etc), there is another one to sell....Once you get back logged in, make/craft more, repost so you have two, then go on with your day"

Get to "work", and start making that gold again!

Epic Gems in Cataclysm - Incoming Soon- Are you Prepared?

Ok folks. Now most of you know from reading my blog that I have a stockpile of Pyrite Ore in the slim chance that we will have the ability to prospect epic gems from them.




 Take them out...seriously. You don't need earplugs, you are reading this, not listening to me.....I know you don't want to read another post about them, but quite a few have been asking again, so I am telling, a bit more in depth than I have hit before.

What is Alto doing to get prepared? What am I expecting? What am I gonna do? Bear with me, and I will explain it. Trust me, you will learn something. If not, then you didn't read all the way through, or you missed something. So pay attention for the two minutes it takes to read this. =)

The Guts of Figuring Out Buyout Prices/ What if the Ore doesn't Prospect Epics?

Now before you say "Just use OreCrusher". Nah. Past that point now, aren't we? For almost three months now, I have had 3 tabs full. Yes, I have bought some since then, but only at my "price point". By that I mean, as an example, I figure that 1 stack nets 5 Volatile Earth and 3 "blue" gems:

So if your Volatile Earth is 20g, then figure that times five, so 100g. Your "blue" gems? I figure what a Inferno Ruby (67g) and an Amberjewel (4g) sell for, add em together, and thats my "estimate" for blues proccing. That isn't too techincal is it? Easy is good. Add them (100g + 71g = 171g per stack). There is my "break even". Make sense? Ok. Good.

Now this will work for NOW. Not later, not after fluctuating market prices, but you are safe to purchase at this price. Obviously, this is once again a break even price. So to profit (which is what we do), you need a lower price on them.

What if Da Epix End Up Disenchanting From Pyrite Ore?

Now to the guts of Pyrite Ore. This is all what we want to hear, right?

"How many epics do I expect to see from one stack?" When I hear this, I shudder. Not factoring past prospecting, I am figuring 1 per two stacks. Nothing else. This is my estimate, and I am sticking to it. It might be more, but it won't be less. Feel me?

Ok...now.....the question is how much will the sexy epic gems go for? The first two days, I am expecting nothing less than 2-3K uncut. Cut? Depends. I will probably hit 3-4K. In the next week, they will settle around the 1K mark, and 2K for the "hard to find" cuts (ones that you don't have, because you didn't have enough Jewelcrafting Tokens saved up from when I told you not to spend em around a month ago).

So with those estimates, I am thinking I will get 1-2K per 2 stacks of Pyrite I have. So one tab will net around 100-200K, pending sales of course. This is why we stockpile, right? And you can bet your ass I will take a day off and just chill next to my AH prospecting, cutting, relisting, collecting gold, well, you get it. Oven and over. *This is IF you can prospect them, mind you....

What? You don't have a Jewelcrafter? Gosh. Alright. A stockpile here and there will still be a good idea due to the resale value. With a gem coming out of every two stacks (estimate again, don't hate), Pyrite Ore stacks will jump up to around 500g per stack. If not more. So you can always resell. Post some up the first few days of the "release", just save some for other things....

Oh yeah, all the AH'ers will be focused on these gems, so this is also the time to jump into "do not enter" markets as well. Have you been bullied out of Glyphs? Get in there. Odds are, there will be less undercuts and lesser competition from the release. Once again, we prosper.

Transmute Alchemists, Know Your Role

What I see happening here is my SURE bet. I have no doubt in my mind that Alchemist's will have access for transmuting. I imagine there will be a cooldown, but really, who cares? Epix, baby. And you can make them.

For this, I am stockpiling Blue Gems. Now I know I have waaay more than I can ever use, but there is a point to that. I want stock. Alot of the "power shufflers" right now are vendoring their blues, because on some servers, they are basically vendor price on some anyways. Others are getting their ass kicked by making "The Perforators". Biggest. Waste. Ever. Who ever thought of that and told folks needs a swift kick, as that is the worst way to get rid of them. Sorry, got sidetracked there. You want a stock so you can sell them in the AH, as the prices will rise. Not tenfold or anything, but I am guessing 20-50ish percent overnight.

Now they will need something additional, the obvious choice there is Volatiles. Oh, what I am doing? I have I stack of each on my alchemist (200). I don't want to be the guy scouring the AH and begging to get them, so if you are so inclined and your bankroll allows, I would recommend this too.

Busy, busy weeking starting tonight, so not sure if I can rock a weekend post or not....so if I do not have one posted, don't freak, I will be back Monday...Have a great weekend kids!

Enchanting Mats: Greater Eternal Essences and Auctioneer

To follow up with my enchanting post from a few days back, another issue that Megan was running into was finding materials for her enchants. Now I just picked one, as this seems to be one of the most expensive and highly sought after essences in WoW.




You can see from the screenshot above, that this surpasses the prices on any essence, in fact, it is a constant on most servers that this is the main dog. Now there are a few options you can utilize to pick up enchanting mats. You can use the Auctioneer Enchant Mats search (however mine seems to be broken for quite some time now...), but once again, and you should know by now, I don't always cover the easiest way to get things. Knowledge is power, and I want (and prefer) you to know and get used to the names, the items, and what and where they come from. Some addon's take all the "smarts" out of things, and at times, is okay. But this way you will be checking and learning, which is a positive step in the AH PvP.

So what we do know is that Greater Eternal Essence is disenchanted from many different items. I am going to focus on a few different ways (and you can go from there to find more, I just don't want this post to go 20 pages long). Mainly, I start with a search on Auctioneer for levels 48-55, as that seems to pull the best luck for me. The numbers might be a bit off (a level here and there), but this will get you started.

Upon the mouseover, your tooltab should show something to this effect. If you look midway down the lower window, you will see a "Disenchants Into:" and this is what you need to check before buying off the AH. Now this item has a 75% chance to "drop" 1.5 Illusion Dusts, and a 20% chance to drop the kingpin, Greater Eternal Essence. Is this a possibility? Sure it is. Is the the "golden" opportunity? Not really. We want focus on a 75% chance to drop Greaters.

See where I am going with this? You feeling me? Good.

In order to get the most Essences (any style, any level), you will want to push for Weapons. Let's check the AH again under the "Weapon" tab..

Now the reason why I listed this second is because, well, just to see if you are reading the entire post, and not skimming through. Seriously. You should check the weapon tab first, as this is where your most profit and least risk will come from. Sneaky, huh? Now let's glance at the tooltip:




Here you will see what we are looking for. We are using the Magus Long Staff of Stamina for an example. 8g buyout price, a possible 100g profit (if we get the proc on average, we obviously won't get a 1.5, but you get my point).

Now you can use the "Disenchant Value (AucAdv)" if you would like, but it's not something I look for. I go off the odds. Now we are seeing the 75% for Greaters, which is what we want. Remember, Blizz has a RNG for disenchants (random number generator), so if you just buy one to "flip", don't expect to get them everytime.

Once again, this is a starting point for you to go by purchasing and flipping or using them to profit. There might be more or less investment involved by crafting them yourself, so take a gander on your profs to see if crafting/de'ing is a good option or not.  I hope this little "how-to" works for you as well as it has for me, and remember, this "class" will work many different ways, you just need to adjust your numbers here and there within your search.

Did you Forget Something? Dust off those Unused Professions!

JMTC has their carnival tomorrow, and here is my "entry" post.  If you haven't already, I want you go over and check it out, as there are quite a few bloggers now with a ton of information. Now for my post, here is how you should start taking on specializing and diversifying the AH on your server. Ready? Set? Go!



Pic from Jack Nadels:
Use What You Have
To Get What You Want



How good are you on the AH? Have you hit 10K, 50K, 500K, a Million? Whichever spot you are at, you mos def need to use what you have to get there. Think about that a second.....

Use what you have. Now this is gonna be completely common sense, but hear me out, as this basic necessity may have passed you by. Use what you have.....

If you are stuck at X amount of gold and wondering why, I can give you one answer (but do you really want to hear it again?) "USE WHAT YOU HAVE". I mean really use it. If you have a toon, and your have Jewelcrafting and Leatherworking (just a for instance here, it can be anything, keep reading...), and you only cut gems and post, what is happening with your other craft? Nothing? Collecting dust? Get the Pledge out and dust that off!

You have professions for a reason, be it to craft goods for yourself or your guild, add to your "buffs" from the profs, but most of you reading this will have a profession for making gold. So why aren't you using it to post your AH? Because you don't want to hit your next 100K mark. That is the only answer you can give. I won't believe anything else.

"Well Alto, it's only 420"

So go burn one. Wait, what? Really, you need to utilize that prof to make you gold. There is probably a reason you stopped leveling. Raiding, got bored, ran outta cash, etc. Whatever excuse you had, you stopped. Pick it back up. If you stopped leveling it, my guess is you also have random mats in your bank near that level too. Use them. Check TuJ or wowhead to see what is available at that level. In leatherworking, there are quite a few niche markets, not all sell daily, but often enough to make a profit. See where I am going with this? Good. Now get it done.

"Alto, I stopped at 515 because I ran out of materials, and the cost was too high"

I am gonna guess that was a few months ago now. The mats have dropped considerably since then, and you need to recheck the AH again. Get up to "cap", and then get some epix recipies (I am still using the leatherworking as an example, but this works with most "crafting" profs other than scribes- as Cata added very little to that prof glyph wise). You spent time leveling that to get to the 515, go that little bit further, because now is the time to make your $$, before 4.1 and a bit after that they will still be selling too (for the ilvl requirements for the heroic 5 mans).

"Bah. There's too much competition"

I have to call bullshit on that one. I really, really, hate that. Too much competition to me means "I am too lazy to look at the different areas". I can personally guarantee there is a niche market somewhere in each profession. Glyphs? "I get undercut". Ok, I believe you. But I bet there are glyphs that aren't even up in the AH right now. It might be a level 25 glyph that sold for 12g last post, but if there isn't one there, it won't sell, amirite? I am. Check. Spend your time, and it will payoff. Guaranteed. Oh, you are a Jewelcrafter? "The gems are worthless, all of them". I call bullshit again...Ok, so you must have every single cut available, along with every "crafted" necklace, ring, etc. And you have checked each one of them at the AH. I bet there are at least 5 "cut" gems that aren't even on your AH. And the crafteds? Yeah, probably half of them aren't on their either....

"Well, to tell you the truth, I was looking at changing profs to XXXXX, because I am bored of it, and haven't used tailoring in a while"

Look above at that answer. Have you checked EVERY possible craft? Are you posting EVERY possible craft? Once again, I see so many folks that don't utilize what they can, or should be, posting daily. You aren't on everyday? Post 24 or 48 hours.....

"God Alto, you know how much AH fees I will lose on 48 hour posts?"

Yeah, I do. But you know how much profit you are losing? You are gonna risk a 10g AH fee if it doesn't sell against a 2-4K profit? Once again, that is one of the worst excuses I have heard. You know Johnny, if you keep saying this stuff, I am gonna have to kick you outta class, I don't think you are even reading what I am talking about....


So in order to specialize and diversify, you need to first see what you can do, what markets (or niches) you have available in your AH, and what time you are willing to spend to find what you are looking for. If you have more money than time, or are just stuck, you can always go to my coaching program and I can assist you in finding what you have been searching for.....gold.

Now log into your toon and start crafting and posting. Then after you sell some, come back and holler. Chanks!

Alto's Politics- Reader's Emails, And Your Vote!

Now I have a "poll" question for you all. Over the last few days, I have received around 20 emails from you folks, which I greatly appreciate. However, there were two that stood out to me....

One consisted of one sentence. That's it. No name, no nothing. It was sent from a "generic" gmail account, one with random numbers and letters @gmail.com. Now I like to think that someone just beat their head on the keyboard to choose the name of the account, but unless their head was like Stewie of Family Guy, I guess that is an unreasonable thought.





Anyways, this is the cut and paste:

I challenge you to go a week without using addons for the auction hause.

Now this one took me by surprise. And hatred towards this, as this is a tough challenge. I hope you guys don't choose this one, as we all have access to the addons, and I truly belive that I will be lucky to AH my way to a few grand a day. If I am lucky. Ugh.....Ready for number two?

This email was directed at the "start with 1,000 gold, and walk us through what you do day to day to make more money". Now this email was about a page long, talking about how the things that I cover on my blog are more for the "rich" folks, and I leave out the "poor" AH'ers.

Now this one seems more fun. I think I would go with a level one'ish toon (no professions), with no bags, no bank, no nothing, but toss him/her 1K gold to see what they can turn it into. Now the issue with this, is I believe I have seen this done before, but not sure if these were the terms.

So now I turn to you. It's as easy as leaving 1 or 2. You can state why if you so desire, as I think it will be interesting to see why you choose either way...

1. Kill off all the Addons in my WoW folder for a week and play the AH (daily posts on what I did)

2. Start a level one toon with only 1K and see what happens in a week (daily posts on what I did)

So basically I am asking you, what do you want to see? I have a feeling that #2 would be the most effective for the masses due to I don't see us ever without addons, but it's up to you what to do.

Now I will accept votes as basic as 1 or 2, so please take the time to comment which number you are voting for (or if you want something completely different, or if you think I should scrap both of them, and just stick with my "normal" posts, you can say that too!). I will tally up the votes tomorrow evening and will tally the votes for Wednesdays post.

Thanks for taking the time!