Back For MoP, Back For Gold

   So here we are back after quite a while with a new post, and hopefully the first in many posts to come. First of all i would like to say that i stopped with writing new articles on the blog for one reason and that reason was simply the fact that i didn't think there was anything new worth writing about, and i didn't want to make "new" posts that would be simply same as the old ones but from a different points of view. 

   Well all of that is about to change with the release of MoP. What this means is simply that all the markets are going to explode and be alive and ripe for the picking, and all you will have to know is how to make the optimal profit from those markets, and that is exactly where i will try to give you all a hand.

   Just like any market, or deal that transpires in the real world where the research and preparation are the key to being a success, the same goes for World Of Warcraft expansions. Knowing what to expect, and more importantly preparing for the upcoming expansion is 50% of the profit already in your pocket. I won't go into details on what you should have bought so far, simply because i made a post in two parts that was more or less a spot on about which items you should have stocked up on, the first part and the second part covered a wide market so you might want to check them out.

   Ok i am done with the words of wisdom, but now lets take a quick look at a tip that will actually make you a very hefty sum of gold in the longer haul, and it will make you go "Daaaaamn that was profitable"

   If you read up on these previous two posts back when i posted them, and you did some preparation and stocking up you should have a nice stock of soon to be older tier of materials, but if you haven't it's not all over as there are still almost two days left for you to pick up some bargains of the year. I will tell you exactly what to look for and what i stocked up and the reason behind it.

   First up i followed up on my own tips about the inscription and the inks in particular, i bought up all the cheap herbs that i could find up on the AH. The reason for this is that when MoP ships the only way to get the older inks would be either mill the old herbs (which are always rare to find) or exchange them for the newest inks (which will be expensive as hell), so this is why by buying inks now and then either reselling them or making glyphs with them in MoP is going to score you some awesome profits. While at the Inscription profession, you might want to take some Moonglow Ink, and Snowfall Ink and put them on the AH in stacks of 1, and the reason for this is because you want to cover the market for all the new Monk Scribes that will pickup Inscription and will want to do their Minor and Northrend inscription research.

  If you have a Jewelcrafter that has been a good boy/girl and has done his dailies and picked up on the epic cut gems then now would be a good idea to pick up the epic raw gems that are up on the Auction House for ridiculously low prices. Just for reference i picked up raw epic gems for 30-80g each, and i am well aware that in a few months i will sell those gems cut to twinks/alts for 1500-3000g easy. The reason behind this thinking is that the supply for these gems is finite and unless they introduce a way to get those gems by transmutes (which i doubt they will) you will end up with a VERY valuable piece of commodity.

   Lastly if you have an Enchanter you might want to pick up on some of the very under priced Maelstrom Crystals, or any of the other enchanting materials that you are low on stock. Just know that the price of the Maelstroms is going to crash in the next few days while anyone and everyone that has an Enchanter is going to be DEing their old gear and trying to sell the Maelstroms on the AH. The reason for stockpiling on these materials is simple, you will want to keep the Cata market covered for twinks that are always there, but the down side is that this is actually a longer term investment but a very lucrative one for that matter. Right now you will be able to pickup the Maelstroms for like dirt cheap prices of like 10-20g and after the dust settles they will be worth at around 100-140g (the vendor price for the ones that know how)

   So i leave you with this for now, but i will continue with new posts and more importantly posts about things that are profitable and things that will help you make a lot of gold. 

   So, like always, keep an eye out for good opportunities out there.

   

Preparing For MoP Investments Part 2

   In the previous post about the pre-launch for MoP we gave the companion and Inscription market a quick glance, and today we are going to take a closer look at a few more markets that would be very lucrative to take advantage as we send off Cataclysm on it's merry way, and welcome to arrival of the new expansion. 

CRAFTING

   First market that you would want to keep your eye on would be the materials market. Now to make it clear, i won't focus on telling you about each crafting profession separately but am i quite sure you will get the idea.

   The idea behind the crafting market, and its potential to be a huge profit margin is quite simple, yet very few people will see it. The actual idea is to buy the materials you usually use to craft your items, be it PvP set items or PvE epic items. The reason for this is because their price is dirt cheap seeing as how it is the end of the expansion and very few markets are moving any goods at all.

   So the price of the given "raw materials" is cheap, the supply is abundant and the competition is really not in the mood to buy it out. Everything sounds like it's setting up to be a sweet deal, but wait that's not all. By buying your materials now you will buy them at prices that aren't affected by the incoming inflation that will hit when MoP ships out. So as an example, if you spend 20g for a stack of Obsidium or Elementium Ore, expect that same ore to be 100g or even more depending on the inflation scale when MoP is the new dog in town, and Cataclysm is left in the rear view mirror.

   But lets take another look at what we want to keep our eyes open for in particular: 

   You want to keep an eye on the price of Elementium Ore for it's use in crafting all the level 85 plate PvP items. You also want to keep a healthy stock of Pyrium Bars which you can use later on to continue crafting Ebonsteel Belt Buckle, these will always be in demand from the people that end up twinking their level 85 characters. Another very important thing would be to keep an eye out for the volatiles, and their price. They are easy to obtain now and their price is cheap, but as soon as MoP hits their demand will go down but the supply will simply borderline dry out, so get yours now while you still can. 

   Another material you might want to get stocked up on would be leather, even though it's price is still a bit steep remember that inflation still hasn't set in and everything is still rather cheap. So if you were in the PvP leather market it would be a good idea to get stocked up as well.

   There are a few markets though that i wouldn't stock up too high on, and that would be the cloth market. The reason behind this is that with the introduction of the mass looting system it is going to become very easy to obtain cloth and it's price is going to be rather "volatile". 

   Last of the professions that would be worth stockpiling on would be the enchanting market. As it is now the price of the Hypnotic Dust as well as all the other latest materials is cheap because the influx is rather high from people still doing the Ore Shuffle but as soon as that is over the price for the dust as well the essences will go up. While on this topic it might be a very good idea to stock up on some Jasper and Alicite  which you can use later on for some post Cata DE action, as well as crafting and selling the rare rings to people that are leveling alts, or the new Pandas.

   Ok i'll end this post here, but in the next post we are going to take a look at how to approach the end of the expansion as a Jewelcrafter,  as well as a trader that wants to bank on the uprising of the new "PANDAmonium".

   So, like always, keep an eye out for good opportunities out there. 

Preparing For MoP Investments

   So in about a month Mists Of Pandaria will ship out and finally we will have something new to do, kill new baddies, raid new places, level our professions and open up new opportunities to make gold. But before MoP finally ships we are going to have some time to make some pre launch investments that will pay out big in the near future, and i will further explain how and why.

   As the sign on the side here says, we will be buying the "used" goods, or translated into WoW terms we will be buying the soon to be old tier stuff. 

   What i mean by this is simply the same thing that happens with the release of every expansion, the week or so before the release of the expansion people get into insane mode, and they are trying to unload everything they have in the hope of making some quick gold off it while it is still current. This has some basic logic behind it, but if you give it a second thought and realize that even though it won't be the current end game tier there will still be market for it, and it will probably end up being much more expensive than it is now.

   But enough with the vague talks about what is going to happen, let's take a look at some actual items that will be worth buying when the big "Yard Sale" begins.

PETS

   Pets or companions will be in great demand in MoP, especially with the whole new Pokemon like pet battles. Up until now there was a demand for these pets from people that simply wanted to have them walk next to them, but now that they will be able to actually make them fight, and level them the demand will go even higher. But not everything is as jolly as it sounds, with the shipping of MoP Blizzard decided to make one crucial change and make all the mounts and pets be account bound. What that means is what ever you have on one character, it will now be shared on all of them.

   So there will be a huge increase on the demand for pets early in the launch of MoP, but that demand will be saturated rather quickly for the more common (vendor/crafted) pets, while the demand for the more rare and extremely rare pets will be further increased, and with that the prices for those pets will inflate quite a bit.  I have covered a bit about the location of the pets in the world, as well as the vendor location in a previous post so you might want to check that out, but if you are looking for more information about pets, you might want to check out some of the other blogs that are on the blogroll.

SCRIBES

    MoP will open up a huge profit market for the crafty scribe that will be up to the task to pounce on the possible profits that could be made early on in MoP. To be even more precise i am talking about the whole new Panda glyphs that will be available at the start.

   Now even though everyone will have them, not everyone will be able to craft them in high volumes. The reason behind this is pretty simple, they will still require 3 inks, but instead of requiring the overstocked inks from Cataclysm it will require the new Ink Of Dreams which will be expensive as hell for the first two months or so. So knowing this here is the punch line, BUY YOUR INKS NOW WHILE THEY ARE STILL DIRT CHEAP !! 

   I can't stress this enough without putting them with big red letters so i did just that, and as for the Panda glyphs the majority of them will require Ink Of The Sea, so make sure you stock up on those in particular. 

   If you are looking for some more info on Inscription and how to prepare for MoP as a scribe, then you might want to pop over to Croda's Blog where he covers all about Inscription. 

   I will cut this post short here, because if i continue on it will end up like a wall of text and we don't want that do we. Anyhow in the next post i will cover the preparation and shopping lists for the Enchanting, Jewelcrafting and the major crafting professions. But for now i leave you at this, and remember like always keep an eye out for good opportunities out there.

Mists Of Pandaria ... Sets Sails

  As the title says Mists of Pandaria will launch later in September, 25th of September to be more precise. Now this is not a ground breaking news if you follow any of the major information gateways, or if you happen to check out the Battlenet site, but the reason why this is a good news is that with this information going public people will know that there will be new baddies to beat, and new gear to obtain. Taking into account that those same people will want to get into MoP with as much as gold possible, it is only logical that they will try and sell some of the stock they have obtained, and get a quick turnaround. 

   Needless to say, this is going to open up a whole new market for the worthy gold making goblins that will fill their coffers to the brim by doing  highly lucrative deals with a huge return in a very short time table. But anyways, after a long and boring wait due to almost nothing happening in WoW, i will re-start with the posting on ways to use the auction house to make a profit and hopefully greet MoP with a gold sum that will allow you to buy anything you might deem worthy of buying without having to deal with the fact that you are broke.

   So heads up and prepare, there is a huge profit storm coming and you want to be on the side of the people that will profit and not on the side of the people that will be carried away by that storm. So keep on reading the blog as well as the other informative blogs that you can find on the blogroll on the side and together we can all make a pretty decent profit.

Protecting Your WoW Account

   Lately i have been away from WoW as well as Diablo, but that doesn't mean that i have lost interest in the games. Well to be honest i kinda lost my interest in Diablo as the feeling i am getting while playing it is simply like i am playing a beta game. But that put aside i still have my interest in WoW, and the economy part in particular, even though we have hit a rough patch of boring as it is.

   As a gold making oriented individuals we love to play the game for it's virtual currency making aspect, where if you play it right you can influence and shape a whole economy. Well today we are going to take a look at the ULTIMATE way to influence the shaping of an economy by doing the most important thing that you can do, protect yourself from hackers and keeping your hard earned gold in your account and away from the black market.

   First of all lets clear one HUGE misunderstanding, whenever someone says that the Chinese farmers are the people that are responsible for the economy going to the gutter, you are dead wrong, it is in reality your own fault. Now let me explain the reasoning as to why i am saying this.

   Let us begin by defining the usual suspects: 

Chinese "farmer" this is basically some guy or a girl that sits in front of the computer and makes gold by actually playing the game, be it by actually farming or playing our beloved AH PvP. ( In many occasions these individuals aren't Chinese, but still the term is the term )
 
Botter this is a guy that doesn't like to sit and spend his time at the keyboard , so instead he is using bots (automated programs) to do all his work for him.
 

Gold Selling Sites well pretty much everyone that has ever gotten up to a major city without turning off his trade channel has had a run in with these guys. They don't actually farm anything as they are more or less a "middle guy" in a otherwise simple transaction. They connect the buyer of the gold with a seller and take a piece of the profit for them selves.

Hacker this is the highest threat to the economy of any game. These are the guys that steal your account information and then log in and pick clean your entire account in a matter of minutes.

   Like i previously said the hackers are the biggest problem by far. The reason why this is so is simply because of the gravity of the impact they have on the economy. When they steal your gold they transfer it away somewhere where they will be able to store it until they find a buyer that they can offload to and get their money. Well the issue arises because when you file a report saying that you were hacked you always get your inventory and gold back, but rarely is your original gold found before it ends up to a buyer. The reason why this is an issue is simple, lets say for an instance that you had 500k on your account. Now if you were hacked, the hacker got away with a 500k worth of loot for a 5 min work he did, that same 500k is now into circulation because it will end up on your same server to some other guy that paid money for it.

Now comparing the 500k a hacker for a 5 min work, to a botter is like comparing your local grocery store to a fortune 500 company. They will both make money but the difference in cash/hour is going to be huge. Don't get me wrong though, botters do have an impact on the economy, but they are dependent on the community to buy their farmed goods and are more or less a factor in the every day economy in WoW.

   So how do we protect ourselves, do we take up a bulwark and try that way, or magic or stealth ? Well the answer to that would be ... don't be ridiculous this it the real world. But still there are ways to protect yourself, and i will give you a few hints as well as the kryptonite of the hackers.

• GET AN AUTHENTICATOR !!
  This is the the one thing that you MUST get if you are serious about keeping your account safe. They are cheap to get on the market, but if you have a smart phone you can get one for free.
  
• GET A SOLID ANTI VIRUS !
  This shouldn't really require a description as to why as it is always nice to have something that will stand in the way of malicious software trying to steal your information ( keyloggers in our case)
  
• DON'T BUY GOLD OR POWERLEVELING SERVICE FROM SITES !
  Really there is no need for you to spend your hard earned cash to get some quick gold, or even worse for someone to play or bot the game that YOU bought, and YOU are paying a monthly price. If you need gold simply read up some of the articles that are on the blog, or some of the other FREE blogs out there and you can get your gold fast and FREE and you will have some fun making it. And not to mention the fact that giving your account information, or even worse your credit card information to a individual or a site that you don't know is not the smartest thing to do.
  
• !!! CHANGE YOUR PASSWORDS !!! DON'T GET HACKED !!!
  This is that kryptonite that i was talking about. This is where more then 90% of the black market gold comes from. But to make it more clear, NEVER EVER use the same password you have on your account and your email that is attached to that account. On top of that, NEVER EVER use the same password on community sites that require you to put in a e-mail. The reason for this is that many, many people do that mistake where they would make an email and put in a password like (qwerty or 123456) and then use that same password for their WoW account and pretty much any other account they make on any forum or community site ( MMO-Champion and similar).
  The reason for telling you this is because many people do this mistake and then they wonder how they got hacked. YOU didn't get hacked, but the community site that you are a part of got hacked and their info was used to feel your account up and see if the passwords match, if they do then you are screwed. So i say it again, NEVER use the same password for your e-mail and community sites that require your password.
  And another thing you might want to do if you want some extra security would be to change your passwords on a monthly basis.
  
  P.S. If you are by chance actually using a password such as QWERTY or 123456 then you do deserve to get hacked !

   So i hope you had a nice time reading this, and i really hope that you didn't find out anything new ( it means that you already did everything right and you are protected) but if you did read something that you didn't know, then apply that to better the safety for your account, and stay safe and protected, and keep those hacking SOBs away from your hard earned gold.