Alto's Readers Choice- Part I - Leveling, Drops, AH, And Noobish Mistakes

I am going to have to say, this is more of an undertaking than I thought. Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoyed the questline this time in Ebon Hold, and it's very well possible that I had skipped over some, or they have changed since I started my first DK.

While I was playing a shade here and there, I was thinking to myself all the things that people commented on. What they wanted to see, what they didn't and starting drawing up a gameplan in my head. Obviously, people didn't want to see me leveling. That is a given, as that is not what my blog is about. But that is part of the process, unless he is just going to flip items in the AH.

Now some of you might have rolled DK's before, so you are aware that you start with some gear (10c vendor if you were wondering the worth), a "blizz powerleveled" 55, and 20s. Not much in terms of cashflow. But we will get back to that soon enough.



My Ding at 58. Three levels in 2.5 hours. Could be better, but not too shabby.

 After finishing the questline in Ebon Hold and hitting 58, I turned my attention (and the quest wanted me to) go to Org through a portal. Once I got there, I was relieved, as I could then repair my gear (6g- it was red....near the end there is a questline that you smash some Scarlets in a big brawl, and due to my bad luck, I kept getting bounced back into the Scarlet Enclave and have a nice Skully demolish me in one hit. This happened five times. Noobish. I guess it could be my sleep deprived body, but I feel it was a glitch. So sue me....

So my first decision was to pick up two gathering professions to assist with my bankroll, so I hit up both the herb and the mining trainers. I needed a break, so afterwords, I hit the AH and run a quick scan while I BRB. I come back, the scan is done. I pull up Auctioneer to check on vendor items (you can see from the pic I am at 26g and change currently.

For those that aren't familiar with the vendor "snatch" function, it's very simple. First you go to the search tab on the bottom of the AH, then immediately go to the left side (under the auction goblin's picture), and there will be a tab for Searchers, and you will go down to where it says vendor and quick-click on it. Now you are wanting to type in a "Minimum Profit", and in this case, I did 20s.

Then go back to the left and see the red Search button? Hit it. To my surprise, three stacks of Eternal Water popped up on the screen. Profit 2g per stack, so a freebie 6 gold to Alto!

I had mentioned earlier that I am leveling up mining and herb at the same time to streamline my goldflow till I am able to work the market on the sever, then I will become more "crafting" profession oriented. When I first trained in Org, I ran out front (no, I didn't /duel anyone...) and started to level up.

I pick a herb, see another dot on my minimap, and go to the Copper Node....now it might be a bit hard to see in the picture, but yeah, I forgot to pick up a mining pic. Go freakin figure...I think througout this process thus far I am really getting dumber (I wasn't too sure that was humanly possible, but this is proof positive).

About 15 minutes later, I came to the conclusion that this project has made me a bit "dumberer" than I was previously, but no matter how stupid I get, I still have my memory... Takk's nest is nestled in the Upper Barrens, and last I was aware, it's a floater. Never in the same spot twice, and it used to be next to a "rare" spawn of a dinosaur. Basically, I used to run out Org's front step, roll around to near this area (see pic above for location) and circle around the mountain there, to look for the "off color" dinosaur.

Then Blizz changed the drop of the pet to an egg nest (which you can see in the pic of me looting). Basically all you need to do now is mouse over the "egg-nests" and if you see a little gold cogweel appear instead of your normal cursor, you found the spot. Now these pets I used to farm, so I will keep you updated on the locations as I level up my gathering profs. Back in Wrath, they were a 1K pet for quite some time, even hitting 2K at times, however since Cata, they are stumbling around 150-200g on most servers. So if you are leveling, it's a viable farm, but there are much better ways to gain at higher levels.

Till tomorrow folks!

Now I want to hear from you....is this what you were expecting? Are you missing my gold posts yet? Remember, you guys are choosing what to do on these, so you gotta let me know:

Do you enjoy this style of post?

Do you want more information on what I had posted on the AH so far?

which I will update this post in the morning what has sold overnight

Or kill off this project, as you don't care for it, and get back to the Gold Posts?

My guess is you will hate one, think about the other, and make a mix of another. Did I guess right? Get them fingers clicking on your keyboard and help me help you!

The Results Are In! And the Winner Is....

I regret to inform you that due to the "chads" sticking, I need to go through and count the submissions by hand. I also have to say that not everyone's votes counted, as they were tossed out in court due to not being relevant to the question asked. Lemme guess, you are all pretty cheesed at me right now. Amirite?







Just kidding. I do want to start this post by saying thanks to all that have taken interest in this little project of mine. I did not think there would be this much discussion on the matter, let alone all the comments left by you. And for that, I thank-you once again. If no one else loved you this past Valentines Day, I did. And still do. Now for the gunk!

Alot of folks commented on how bad #1 would be. Since the release of WoW, there has basically been addons. I started a few months into the release (however I did play a bit at my bud's, he had access from day one, and even a bit before with the Beta from playing Diablo) and there were already addon's out, although nothing compared to what they are now...so this idea was the first one tossed out.

For number two, starting a fresh toon with 1K. The comments received on this one were all over the place. Some liked the idea of a level 1, yet others commented how much this has been done before. Nev did a great series on this at Auction House Addict, Markco has this listed on a part of his 20K guide as well as a youtube video on it. No reason for me to go this route either. It has been done, and very well I might add.

So neither 1 or 2 wins....well...sorta. Read on please:




Lets go over the comments. Almost every post and email that I read were either wanting some sort of a mix of the two, or a complete hybrid of the ideas as a whole. Now is where I am stuck.

"The email did make a very good point in that a majority of gold-making blogs are geared toward higher level toons with maxed or near maxed professions" Ali


"Realistically, if a player had only a level one character with nothing but 1000g they would probably be more interested in leveling than making gold straight away." Seal


"Some great comments here but I'm going to be contrarian here. I say neither" Super Casual


"I'm not particularly interested in another "Rags to Riches" experiment" Vince


"challenge #2 will teach low level players how to make gold when they're just starting." Mage


"Of course, I'm not exactly riveted by Challenge #2, either, but it'd be a better read" Stede


"Good luck sir, and may you survive without clawing out your eyes at the horrible default AH UI." Bruski (loved this comment, he really wants me to be hurt. bad..."


"I'd have to agree with "neither"." Michael


"Maybe do something else, like only use some professions that are (almost) never blogged about? I'm thinking Blacksmithing!" Xylaria

So as you can see, there are quite a few "morphs" in the comments, and the emails I received (18) are basically the same, most hating the one and making a "hybrid" of 2.

Now I have come to my decision. Drum roll please.......

I will start a Horde DK (lvl55, a "mid" level toon) on a mid population server,  and will level two professions along with it. And he's a goblin...(just kidding). A nice juicy steak. Err, I mean Tauren. In case you are interested in keeping up with him when I am not posting about him, check his auctions over at TuJ, his name is Altolycus on the server Anvilmar.

Ebon Hold awaits!

Are you happy with the results? Are you pissed off about them? Shout out! Don't hold it in! *it will just give you a tummyache...

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!

4.0.6 Update: Tiny Treasure Chest Droprate

I have some new droprate information for you all since the patch and recent hotfixes, as I am sure that you have been wondering if it's worth spending 250g on a Potion of Treasure Finding or not. I went to my time honored mob spot (Hyjal) and I timed an hour (ok, 1 sec short on my last loot) and here are the results:

122g 54s 29c: Gold Looted
52g 78s 40c : Random Greys, vendored
85g 38s 83c : (10) Random Greens, vendored
356g : Kilt of Elemental Mending (only blue looted- AH price)
396g : 18 Volatile Fire
96g : 32 Embersilk Cloth
77 Lovely Charms

12 Tiny Treasure Chests:
225g : (75) Embersilk Cloth
24g : (2) Pyrite Ore
28g : (7) Elementium Ore
72g : (3) Volatile Water
198g : (9) Volatile Fire
44g : (4) Volatile Life
90g : (6) Volatile Earth
27g : (1) Volatile Air


Total Gold= 1816'ish
Minus 150g for Potion= 1666g

The 12 Tiny Treasure Chests more than covered the "average" cost of the Potion on the AH, so I believe that it is still viable to use for solo mob farming. Obviously, you can factor in the numbers to make them better or worse by crafting items, fluctuating AH prices, AH fees, etc. It does seem that the "patch change" to the chests have no significant difference from before.

And as an update, I received some in game mail, I seemed to have sold a 5K card to one happy customer! Have you sold one? Have you got one? Are the cards even selling anymore on your server?

My New Hero. And My New Blog

Uh, oh. He's starting to look professional....

You all know I am still a "noob" when it comes to the blogging thing, as I have only been floating around the blogosphere for a few months now. Although my posts are constantly fresh and updated (I like to think so at least), my website has been lacking since day one. A change here, a change there, but you have been basically staring at a blank chalkboard. Good thing I usually have something interesting to say, huh?





I figured that since I was getting tired of the bland old look of my blog design, that you guys/gals would too, so I decided that it needed to change. Program HTML? Ha! I thought that was the initials for some Goverment party. I might know how to make gold in WoW, but I have no clue when it comes to programming. So I needed to find someone that does.

After searching around, I decided on the best. Zoxy over at Trading With Zoxy. He is extremely knowledgeable in this area, and very reasonable on the cost, and comes highly recommended by yours truly! 

Before you do, I want you to think about this a second....You know how you have been needing that new gem cut, but don't have one yet? You personally don't have that design to cut it yourself, so you go into /2 and say "LF Jewelcrafter with XXX cut.". Now why do you do that? It's because you don't know how to do it yourself. Yeah, you could learn it, but it will cost you. Gold, time, what-have-you. So you go to someone that knows it, right? And then what do you do? Tip. So do me a solid, if you are looking for some help with your site, give Zoxy a holler. And don't forget to tip.

If you are as shocked as I am with the new site, and wondering what/where everything is, here's my briefing for you complete from top to bottom:

1. Home, Guest Posting, Personal AH Coach, Contact Me. These are at the top of the page, and are in remodeling stage. Go ahead and click em to check them out. They are pretty self explanatory.

2. Mob Farming, Herb/Ore Farming, Auction House, Patch/Hotfix, Professions, Events, Altos PoV. These are going to take some time for me to get them set up, so bear with me. There are drop down topics if you mouse over the titles, and soon to be added links within. Under Construction.

3. Followers. This is an option that you are used to seeing. I would appreciate it if you haven't signed up to follow, that you do so. It might not mean anything to you, but it does me. Thanks!

4. New style of "promoting" my site through twitter, digg, facebook, etc. See all them circles up there on the right? Yeah, thats them. Don't hesitate to get the word out for more traffic. If you like my post, take the time click one of them tiny buttons for me. I thank you ahead of time.

5. Search Box. Right under the "promoting" circles I just mentioned. This will help you tremendously. Remember that post that you read a few weeks back. Or was it a month ago? Stop racking your brain and just type a word in there. It will find it. Problem solved. =)

6. Recent Comments, Blog List, and Popular Posts. These are all following down the right side of the page. Once again self explanatory, you are used to seeing them already.

7. Categories. New thing here, I am working on it as we speak. The fun part is that I have to go through every one of my posts to complete this area. Once again, be patient, as I will get it completed asap.

8. Blog Archive. Same ol, same ol. Nothing new, this will be getting tossed once I get the site completed, hopefully within the week.

I hope that helps if you had any questions on the site. So, I have a question for you now:

What do you think of the new site?

Email Question Answered- Alto's Play by Play Morning Ritual

*Edit- I have an update, as I just saw we had another hotfix. I reported back on patch day that it seemed that the cost of PvP gear was raised. Blizz announced that it is was an unexpected error, prices are now back to normal.


Morning folks! I recceived an email from one of my readers recently, and wanted to cover it in a post. I am going to hit on my changed AH ritual, and the basis is going to be my start to finish a.m. process (normally around 30 minutes). So sit back, take a sip of coffee, and enjoy!

Altos,

I want to say thanks for the informaition you have been giving us, it is a great help! Some days, I feel like you are writing just for me, your posts cover just what I ask! I have been a reader for a few months, and I still go back here and there to re-read your posts. I have two questions if you don't mind. One, have you changed your auction house ritual lately? What are you doing different? And two, you interviewed Marcko and asked him what his "day in the life of" was like, what's yours?

Sincerely,
Heather XXXXXX

P.S.
I do miss seeing your mailbox openings. It gives me motivation to pursue my own goals. I started at 22,Kg and am now sitting at 110,Kg two months later, even after buying a Vial of the Sands mount! I have attached some screen shots of mine, they aren't as big, but I had a 9Kg day!

85 Priest 525 Inscription- 525 Tailoring
84 Mage 525 Mining- 525 Herbalism

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Well Heather, here you go!

6:45am

Daddy wakes up (I am not Alto yet, so I am better known in life as Daddy....) I go into my office, log into wow, do an AH scan through Auctionator. I now take the role of Alto.

6:50am-

Since there are still some recipies that are out there from 4.0.6 drop, I go into Auctioneer first and click on Rare (so it only shows rare and above recipies). I notice that there is a Formula- Enchant Bracer- Major Strength in the AH for 15K buyout, 7.5K bid. First one that I have seen, so I hesistate, and decide to send an in game mail to the seller with an offer....

6:51am-

Go to the mailbox, SS for "The Openings" and see I have a "few" C.O.D's 19 to be exact. 200+ stacks.

I click each one, pay the COD fee and let them sit. My farmer has his gold, he's happy. I have a ton to prospect.

6:55am-

I now write a mail to purchase the Formula, and send it out (I know I spelled strength wrong, was that intentional? You decide...).

While I am running, I hit the Jewelcrafter's daily to see if I need to list up some uncut gems. Stardust. Some like this one cuz it's easy, I don't because there is no money to be made. Oh well..

6:56am-
Back to the AH to check my auctions, see what I need to relist, and see if I need to buy anything for flips, resale, or crafting needs. I pull up on Auctionator Buy tab a few of my "Shopping Lists" on what are normail undercut items and what I purchase regularly. I see the red X, and that tells me I have been outbid. Since the AH fee is so cheap on the Essences, I delete and relist as lowest seller.

6:58am

I see that Cinderbloom is at a decent price for a "Milling Flip" (so I double check the current Inferno Ink costs), and I see that I will triple my investment . So, 57 stacks of 20 are bought. Now I know that I have milling (about 10 minutes) and prospecting (about 20-25 minutes) to do later. The things we do for virtual gold, huh?

7:00am-
Now I start to relist my "daily" items. Cut/Uncut Gems/Shadowspirit Diamonds, Glyphs, Blackfallow Ink and Inferno Ink, random blues/epic gear and weapons, a few ores and herbs on occasion, any Volatiles, Essences, Dusts, Vendor items, etc (Can you see I am not in one market?) If you count it out, I probably hit about 30 (easy), and am successful in "almost" all of them. Note the "almost". There are folks that camp the AH, or have the mobile AH that undercut consistently. I cannot, as I don't have the time. Throughout the day, I will hit 5 min here and there if I can, but not always..

7:10am-
I now hop on my Alchemist, as I need to do the Daily Transmute and I need to craft some Shadowspirits (I am a few days off, so she has some stock to D/E as well). I open her mail, and 4 pages of work for her as well. Fun times ahead.... (figure the math on that one, 27 mails times 12 per mail. Can you say behind?)

7:12am-

So onto her Transmute. She is based in Dal for the bank and AH access and for Jessica the Ink trader, but since the patch, no need for that, so not sure where she will sit now....

7:16am-

Log off, and start my day. My daughter sleeps till around 830ish, so I have a bit of time to write up the post. I end up not having more time to proofread and post until 10am, when her show is on t.v. 

I hope this gives you a bit of insight to how the ball rolls for me. Day to day the morning ritual changes, logging and posting from three different toons, depending on who has been lacking or who holds what in their banks. Now I did not go into a whole lot of detail, but if you would like a more defined post on a certain area, holler in comments or send an email to altosgoldishadvice@gmail.com .

Now my questions for you. Does this look familiar? Do you do anything different or unique that I didn't hit on? Do you have any ideas/advice for me on this process? Do you agree with Heather and want me to start posting my openings again?   

Alto vs. World of Warcraft Blogging

Patch day. What I normally do today is when I have a minute, I read through my blogroll, leave a few comments here and there, click on a few ads to help some bloggers when I like their topics (my way of saying thanks!) and write a fresh topic (not like I don't have a few backups, but this one will be posted live).

I am not posting a gold topic today, as I got extremely frustrated reading comments left on a fellow blogger's Guest Post on an extremely popular blog. I left a comment there, but decided to go a bit further with it, and felt that here is a great spot to do it. I might offend some of my readers, I might not, but I need to get this out there:

The Reasons I Started

One of the reasons I started blogging was after reading some top blogs out there, I felt that they were missing something. Me (I know, that sounds like I am being conceded, but I will add on this later). I started at the beginning with my favorite farming spots, then got more into the AH game, what to look for, what to buy/sell, and finially I decided on just writing about what I do daily: if I look at patch/hotfix notes, if I farm mobs somewhere, if I am doing a new style of an old AH trick, you name it, if I do it, I write it.

So in other words, you get a taste of how I am where I am (one server, just shy of cap, spread on three toons, net worth fluctuates, but around 1.3m currently, with 900K liquid). Now I am not a writer by any means, and make quite a few errors, but I feel I get my main point across to you folks, and that is my goal.

My Take on Blogs- Others and My Own

As I wrote in my comment earlier, Bloggers are like newscasters. In wow, there are only so many things you can do. You start to see overlaps of the same processes. How about the Obsidium Shuffle? I think every blog hit on that. Or 4.0.6? Shit, when it was first talked about a month ago, I wrote on it, and I hope that you folks take the time to look back on them, but I haven't wrote a blog dedicated to them since. Why is that? Because I didn't read it. Not in my daily ritual. See where I am going? Some people prefer FOX news for their viewing pleasure, some like CNN, ABC, NBC, etc.

They all cover the same information, but some cover it differently. You might have one taking from a desk, very educated I might add, talking with a picture adding to his/her commentary. There is another that uses video. And yet another interviewing folks on the street. Then you have what I feel my blog is, "in the field". I am out there. I am doing it. I screen shot to explain my process. And why did I decide to do it that way? Because that's what I was looking for in a blog about WoW. And didn't find one. Hence the "me" above. I wasn't being conceted by any means, but even though I write all my posts, belive it or not, I still go back on my own and read them. Call it forgetful memory, or stupidity, but I read them and don't even really register that I wrote it. That might not make sense to you, but it does to me.

My Take on Comments

This is what made me write this today. Back to what I hit on earlier, I was reading comments on JMTC, a fellow blogger Kammler had a guest post on JMTC. Well written. I was going through the comments and everyone had their two cents on the post. Some were hating, some were loving, others hated on Mage. Now reading these, I agreed on some, disagreed on others:

*   One bashed his grammar. Grammar Police. I get it. When I was reading his post, I didn't think about that. I was reading his take on the topic of the article. Notice I said "his" take. But, that is what they saw in the post. This bothers some, others can give a shit...

*   A few of them bashed his thought process. What he felt the topic meant to him. That is a thing us bloggers deal with. People have different viewpoints on EVERYTHING. "Well, I do it this way, so it's right, and everyone else is wrong". I fall into that trap sometimes, because when I do something and it works, I say to do it that way. If someone comments to do it another way, well, that what works on their server. No hating, just a different view on the same topic. CNN vs. Fox.

*   There was a bash towards Mage not reading other blogs before posting on his (Markco's) blog, that this post has been out in the blogosphere three times already. Now I feel I keep up on other blogs, but somehow I missed the three post part. That would bother me too, if I was expecting fresh information from JMTC, and I got hit with something like that. But, I wouldn't comment about it, just not how I am. On the flipside of this, I haven't seen this article yet. If it wasn't for JMTC, I wouldn't have seen it, and had a chance to read it's content. JMTC has an easy 5-10K (probably more, just guessing here) reads a day, and Kammler's blog has a small percentage of that (once again, just a guess). I feel that I am correct when I say that's why Markco does that, he wants other blogs to be known by his readers too (I get almost 50% of my readers referred from JMTC- so I know this and have thanked him often for that.).

*   Another comment said something I love, they were basically asking for Markco's "two copper" on the post. The reason I started reading JMTC was for the fact that I loved the way Markco supplied his information to me. Great insight, great writing, well thought out. I would enjoy seeing his comments on guest posts. So Markco, if you read this, know there is one more vote for you to do that.


Learning from Comments

Quite a few times, when you folks leave comments, I learn from them. Many times, if a comment is viable and works, I will *edit my post to add that information, so the masses that don't read comments can see this great tidbit of information (that I either left out, or that is new to me- I never claimed to have the "best" wow information, as you know from the title of my blog). In a perfect world, everyone that reads my posts would write a comment. Now there is my goal. Too bad I have zero control on that one.....

Double Posts with No "Link Love"

Once again, another pet peeve of mine. I will write a post, and a few hours later see someone cover the exact same topic. At times, word for word. Like they took mine, copy and pasted, and added a few other things. I read it, get pissed, and soon get over it. If they don't have something to cover and have to "steal" my post, at least give me a link to my page. Fuckers. Excuse that if you are offended. This just really pisses me off to no end....
Now on the flipside of this, I have been guilty of my own pet peeve. Now I do my best to view my WHOLE blogrolls posts, there are times when I miss things. Just last week I did a post (OreCrusher) and there were two different bloggers that already posted this information, one I knew about (so I gave the link love), and one I didn't remember where I saw it (and added an update after they commented). I hope I didn't bother anyone, but that "for instance" falls back on my comparing ABC to NBC to Fox News. Three different viewpoints. And due to my style, I don't think I caused hate by anyone, as all my posts are my viewpoints, using my own screen shots, with my own information inside.

Random

Ok, a few other things here. One, bloggers that are against the "ads" that are used. So if you don't have ads on your page you are better than those that do? Cmon. Ok, I agree. You are better than me for that. Happy? I have ads on my page. I will always have them. Cmon, 21 bucks for a 60day gametime card? Yeah, Amazon baby. I buy em, do you? Cheapness. Once again, something I saw that I am showing the masses. Buy gold here? Nah, google adwords, you are wrong. My readers dont want a diamond ring. They want wow gold, and they want to make it themselves, not buying it from you and getting the banstick....

Last one, I promise....Those that think blogging is a popularity contest. Hating on other blogs, while promoting others. Really, I don't care one bit which "club" you are in, if you are an "elite" member somewhere, and "brag" about it constantly. If that is what makes you happy, by all means, be proud of it. But don't lose readers because you talk about it almost every post. Or do lose them. It's up to you.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So overall, the whole Alto vs. WoW blogging got canceled. No fight card. We are buddies. And will continue to be. I am sure I didn't cover some scoops on blogs, and overcovered others. It happens (probably due to ADHD and Adderall- or just the fact that this post was written in two hours, when in all reality with no distractions would have been 30 minutes).

I do want to reiterate my "sorry" to all my readers that were expecting a gold'ish post from me. I guarantee you will get some "hot of the press" scoops on the patch today later this evening. I will make up for this rambling I had this morning. Promise. Pinkie swear. Oh, speaking of swearing, I used a bit of profanity, and sorry if that bothered you, but sometimes I don't have a better word for it.....


Now it's your turn. Comments. 3........2.........1.........GO!

Darkmoon Faire - 2.6.11 Location in Shattrath

*Edit- I want you all to know that if you haven't purchased Markco's 20K Gold Guide, he is offering it for $10 off the normal price of $37 for a limited time! If you are not familiar with this, it is hands down the best guide out there! Follow this link to check it out! You will not be disappointed! Guaranteed!

Is is that time of the month again? I imagine all of you are prepared for the festivities! Where is it? A closely guarded secret of course! I suppose you want to know, huh?

Just south of Shatt in Shadowmoon Valley, if you look at your map, it's on the upper right tip of the Stattrath City scroll. Ok. Now I imagine you are expecting me to tell you what to do while visiting there? Ok. Here goes:

Depending on if you are a buyer or seller (I recommend the latter, or "flipping") the items in the AH, here's my quickie list that I use to search for the items needed to get your Darkmoon Faire PrizeTickets from the fair. Now there isn't much of a markup for the "turn-ins" with the tickets, but you might want to look at your server, as the prices fluctuate almost hourly. Your best bet is to flip the items for a better profit IMO.

 

 There are a few vendors within the gates of the faire, one has very low level herbs (watch your AH price, as the Fel Lotus and Living Ruby are probably not a good deal, but the rest are. The other vendor has scrolls for sale (once again, not a huge markup, but if you are willing to spend 2s to get 30s, then take advantage- great for low level toons btw).

Now the vendor that you are gonna want to hit is this little ogre "kid" running around chasing his frog. His name is Flik. Hop on your mount, and just look for this demon running around like he just popped some speeders. If you mouse over him (with your cursor), he will stop. He has the good stuff for sale. Too bad they don't stack, but worse case, buy a few of the Tree Frog Box, and mos def pickup the "limited" Wood Frog Box. Now the good thing about these is they sell quite frequently.

Thats my quick rundown on the Faire, if you feel I left anything out, don't hesitate to leave a comment below to help the other readers. Been working on another post, will hopefully get it out to you this afternoon, so keep posted! 

JMTC Carnival - How You Can Make Gold With Limited Playtime

This is my monthly post for JMTC's Blogging Carnival. If you aren't familiar, take a few and go over there to check out some of the previous month's posts. Great information there, so go read up!

I feel that alot of the raiders are (for the most part) left in the dust when it comes to AH tips. So you don't have a "capped" profession. You barely have enough time to log in, hit the AH for your pots/buff food before you are late. Again.

/guild chat "Joe Shmoe's late. Again. Ugh. We will wait 5 more minutes"
/guild chat "I am at the AH getting buffs man, chill"
/guild chat "Sure you are...you forgot last time. Hurry up."
/guild chat "Gimme one minute, I gotta hit the vendor too"
/guild chat "Alright, I am ready"

Sound (or look) familiar? So you are limited time and you wanna make some cash. Not a problem. With or without addons, but I prefer if you get Auctioneer and Auctionator, as this will help you with my (now your) 5 minute AH plan...


If you don't have Auctioneer and Auctionator:

Ok. If you are new to the whole AH addon thing, then listen up. If you are a raider, then you already know how to install. EZ peezie, right? Ok. Do it. Now. Got em? Get em in there. You need to set up a "base" of knowledge. You will need to do scans of both types. On the main page, there is a Scan in the lower left side, this is the "full" scan. Do that. See the time left? Yeah. Go do something for "x" minutes. From now on, you can hit the little "fast forward" button on the top of the AH screen. See it? Ok. Use this every time you hit the AH. Feel me? Okie dokie. Done. After doing this for a week or so (prefer two weeks to get a good baseline- two months is better) you will have enough built up to start seeing trends. But at the very least, this will get you started.

If you do:
You have nothing to read here. Doesn't it feel good? But you do have to read below. Ok?

Now for the juicy parts. I am not a Cata raider (ok, back in Vanilla, I was da killa DPS in Molten Core and AQ20/40), so you can probably teach me alot about this area. But I know enough about what sells, and what I don't know, there is http://www.wowhead.com/ and http://www.google.com/ if you are stuck and don't know about a certain item we are looking at. Screenies incoming...

Here is my first example. See that stack of Savage Leather? (Don't forget to look for the Savage Leather Scraps too) Toss a bid on it. You might not win, but it's worth a shot. You can see from the left side of the screen, you just tab through to get here, and glance through the auctions. Anything in trade goods under 10% you basically can buy. Now Cata goods, Anything under the 30% threshold I snatch up. These are all 100% resale for you. Freebie profits. You should be looking at Leather, Metal & Stone, Meat, Herb, basically everything in Trade Goods will do.

Second example. Toughened Flesh. Now these are set for buyouts. They are cheap. Crazy cheap. Why? Supply and Demand. Now these images will be different from your server, but the idea is still the same. Snatch all these up. A hundo gold or so, and relist for 80% or above. What? You don't get 80%? Ok. See the 14% next to the price? Multiply by 7'ish to get near the 100% price scan. You feel me? Ok. relist at that price. Same if you pick up something for 30%. Go off times three of your price. You buy em for 20g? Should list for 60g.

You have a few options on how to buy these (remember, use your judgement on what to purchase, if you are just starting the AH game, only buy what you know. Or have used. That means if raiders use it, it sells). Alright. Either click and buy every one of them on this screen (i do not recommend), or use the reddish tab on the lower right of the AH window that says BUY. Now type in Toughened Flesh or whatever it is you want to buy. Click away, and in this case, I would buy to the 3g'ish one. Why? Markup. You can go and clear the AH of these, but that is a different post. You are limited here, and only have 5 minutes, remember?

Now here's the quickie on listing auctions. Here, you will be using the Orange (red) SELL tab on the bottom of the AH window. See it? Ok. Now list those toughened flesh's you just bought by draggin them from your bag into that little slot. Auctionator will automatically undercut the competition, and in this case, we went to the 3g group. So basically, out of the 80ish flesh's we bought, we should end up with a 200g profit upon sales. Now if you are inclined, I wouldn't recommend it, but you can buy out everything up to the 15g one, and be able to sell for quite a bit more profit. But once again, I wouldn't advise that right now....

Ok. I think you are getting the gist of the basics of the AH. After using it a while, you will fly through your buying and selling. You might actually start enjoying it, as you can make a quick buck here. After a while, you will get used to what items are sellers, and what aren't. Use your own experience in what you have bought and just stay in that market for now. What? You want more? I thought I was done? Ok. One more tip.

Look up two pictures. See it? Ok. Look at the left of the screen. See all them items I have listed? Those are recent searches on the Auctionator Buy Tab. Once you buy (or search for that matter) an item, it stays in there. So say those Toughened Flesh are selling good for you. Check daily on what's in stock by going to that screen and tapping enter. If they are low, buy em. EZ again, huh?

Alright. We are almost at the end of the post. If you have any questions about this process, or want more ideas, I am sure other readers will be posting extra information below this in comments, so make sure and check back a day or so later to re-read this post and the comments. You can always ask or email myself at altosgoldishadvice@gmail.com and I will work with you, maybe even hop on your server if you really need assistance. Sound good? Ok.

Here is where all your time spent doing those heroics is gonna pay off. Greatly. At a cost of 1650'ish VP's, It might take a few weeks to get up there, a week if you are hardcore, a few days if you don't sleep..... 

So you have extra Valor Points? You are in luck, and you are gonna make a killing from turning them in. You already know where the vendor is, right? Ok. What you are gonna buy are the boots. Any boots. *Edit- Anonymous commented below that the leather boots, Treads of Fleeting Joy, are the way to go!

They are BoE and will sell on the AH and in /2 by "barking" your wares. What? You don't know what barking is? Selling goods. You don't have to get fancy and make a macro unless you want to, but a simple "/2 Selling Epic BoE Boots. Your choice, 20K" or what have you.

Don't worry, they will sell. I personally haven't done this one, and I was debating whether to mention it, but I know a few peeps that raid (and when they aren't, Heroics ftw) that have flipped a few of these. "Free" 20K (ahaha....if you read my posts, you will understand...). Although, certain buyers will pay upwards of 50K for a juicy new set of i359s.


Remember, if you have any questions feel free to post below (and don't think you will be noobified for them, no question is a bad question). There are quite a few folks that are extremely helpful, and would be happy to give you advice on the subject. I hope you learned something, and if you didn't, well, it happens. The information is pretty basic, and alot of people already do this, but if you are not a crafter, and your time is just spent "flipping" items, you will still do great. Don't go too small, don't go too big. Never invest more that 25% of your total cash into one area at a time. Before you know it, you will be a big AH'er. Just don't forget to check back to the blog to get more daily scoops of whatever crap Alto is serving.....

Thanks for reading, now go make some cash!

The Retirement of our "King of Gold" Markco

Markco,

What you have done to the WoW community as a whole is undescribable. You have helped tons of folks not only learn how to make a buttload (for lack of a better term) of gold, but you have also brought this "hobby" [albeit a business for some] of gold making in WoW to the masses. Whether it was through your blog at JMTC or your 20K Gold Guide, you have helped us all!

I found out about your site almost 2 years ago (give or take a few hours). I started reading the articles and enjoyed hearing "insider information" on goldmaking. At the time, I wasn't aware there was even blogs, or what they were for that matter. For some little known reason, I thought that you were some type of Blizzard worker that was giving behind the scenes ideas on how to play wow, and believe it or not, I figured I was only one of a few people reading it (haha, yeah, I know), because everything you hit on, I was making a killing.

I even got a three day suspension back in the day for "manipulating the economy" I believe is how it was put. From playing the AH. Not from playing a character, not from "botting", not from speed hacks or honor farming. From the AH. Doing nothing other than what you talked about, but on a mass scale. This was due to the one week of making 35K. Back then, that would be like hitting 200K now. God I was pissed at you for making me lose my account. In the middle of this, I did start feeling guilty that I took your advice (and still thinking that you were a blizz employee gone rogue) and figured my lesson learned. So after a bit of emails and phone calls back and forth with Blizz, I got my account back. Funny, I know......

To make a long story short, I just wanted to thank you for your time and skillz for helping us all become what we are today. Good luck in your new edeavors and I am sure that you will succeed in anything that you get your grubby little hands on.

Thanks Brother,
Jerry.
AKA Alto

Now for all you readers of JMTC, the site is not leaving or shutting down, Mageshadow (formerly of The Gnomish Coin blog) has taken over and is doing a great job, so keep reading up on the articles, as they are still full of great information!

*The pic above was found at http://www.despair.com/

I am a Junkie for Junkies, are You?

Hey folks, did you have a chance to get over to see the new show at Auction House Junkies? A few of my favorite bloggers  (Wes and Cold- in no particular order) just posted their second podcast, talking about all things gold related.

I am definitely a loyal subscriber, are you?

There's something about listening to this....I really enjoy two peeps chatting about what they have been working on lately in the WoW world, especially by professionals. It's basically a blog post, more in depth and more descriptive, as you have a few points of view going on. So go there, hit play on the tab, and do your AH'ing, D/E'ing, Milling, Crafting, etc. It makes the time go by quicker, and to top it off, you have access to your AH when they start ripping out what items they are selling and what they are doing, you can check prices and get on the bandwagon quickly!

They covered (of course) the Mysterious Fortune Cards (which kills me, as no matter when, they are only 15ish gold on my server) and the pile of gold being made off them, and they hit quite a bit on the Obsidium Ore shuffle, that has also come and gone for me (once again, competition).

What did impress me was the detail in Blacksmithing. I do not have one, but it made me think of a few old "shuffles" that I used to do, as well as when the Enchanting mats [supply and demand] was spoke about too. Great information once again folks, I am waiting to hear what the next topic is......

And for those that want more detail on what was talked about, go direct to the cast, Auction House Junkies.

Till next time.....