Ok, so no Ohnekase again this week. Instead, I wanted to back up a bit and talk about the goldmaking path.
Goldmaking itself is not the easiest thing to accomplish. It takes time, dedication, and a slightly different style of play than most people are used to. Hell, look at me. I am doing the #onemonthonetoon challenge and I haven't really made that much money in the past 2 to 3 weeks I have been posting, because I changed the parameters that usually have me at better goldmaking level. That being said, once you start goldmaking, it isn't like you hit the gold cap in 2 days with no effort. There are barriers and bumps. As such, I wanted to find out from the Goldmaking community where the problems they found were, so I could write a blog about it. Based on the results I am seeing, I think I have some good material. So today, I would like to talk about the each goldmaking step and why some of these are difficult for others.
Goldmaking milestones
Ok, so looking at the poll, I would break goldmaking tiers into 3 tiers: Goldmaking at low levels (up to around 50k), Goldmaking at medium levels (~50k to 500k) and high end goldmaking. The way I see these poll results, I could have listed it with just 4 poll results rather than the 10 options I gave you all: Each of my 3 tiers of goldmaking and "Its all been easy". However, I find it facinating to see what people put as specific monetary values for goldmaking.
Each of the 3 tiers of goldmaking has its perks and disadvantages. At each tier, certain strategies work better and certain strategies are weaker for you. You gain some pieces, but may make other pieces less profitable. I would also expect that these variations are why some people put low tiers are harder, and others put high tiers, etc.
So, lets get into it.
Low-Tier goldmaking (up to about 50k gold)
Most everyone put that this tier is the hardest to make gold, including me. After all, you have no money to work with and could very well be low level or just not able to take advantage of high level strategies. For example, if you don't have a lot of gold, trying to make a killing off of Darkmoon Faire decks back in the beginning of Cata was probably a lot more difficult, if not impossible, because a lot of strategies could cost an awful lot of money. You also have to be more wary of competition. If someone wants a market, it is likely they have a bigger bankroll than you and can push you out of the market pretty effeciently.
However, on the flip side, I feel that the low level goldmaking can still be profitable by using the ultimate goblin formula: Time = Money. At high gold making levels, you want to make as much money as you can in as little time as you can afford to. After all, it is more time effecient usually to go buy your materials off of the Auction House, even if it is at more of premium (why do you think Goldthorn can sell at 20g a piece). When you have hundreds of thousands of gold, buying mats more expensively really doesn't hurt you and helps you keep your business going, so if you have to, it is not a problem. At low level, we don't have that option. What we can do, though, is put more time into making smaller amounts of money. We can go farm some Goldthorn for a while and it is still worth out time to do so. We can worry about making at least one more gold than we had before because that is a meaningful bump. Finally, we can look into silly little markets where the established goldmakers dont worry about.
As a note on the idea that we can use the time side of the equation, look at @DEAzeroth. I would bet that he did not have more than, say, 40k gold when he started trying to get transmog gear. However, he took a lot of time and dedication, both in and out of the game, to gather his own resources and begin to set up for when the market would explode. What happened? He broke into the Transmogriphication market and made zounds of money. His time and effort paid off big. Will that happen to everyone? Goodness, no. But you will break the low level goldmaking tier as you keep putting in the time.
One last thing about low level goldmaking tier. Personally, when I voted, I voted for "Breaking 30,000 gold" myself, and there is good reason and a reason that I would say this is the hardest hurdle to break. So, here is my story of how I got into gold making.
I have been playing since Classic WoW. Seriously, I have probably made more than 60 characters (I have since deleted many of them) and probably would have made more but I made myself focus. As of right now, I finally have a "Main" character. I use that as my primary character. He finished all the Holiday achievements, I have occassionally raided with him, etc. This character, back in WotLK had 12k gold or so. I wasn't rich, but I wasn't interesting in making a ton of money. For myself, I always just did a little effort to make a little money here and there when I needed it and did not worry about it otherwise. Come Cataclysm and the Vial of the Sands, and I started to get more interested. Wow that could be so cool, but 26k minimum was so freaking expensive, I could never pull that off.
Well, as it turns out, after a few months, my guild needed some flasks and were offering 100 gold per flask or something like that.. So, I decided to go farm some mats up for them and make them for my guild. I spent one saturday, something like 12 hours, farming materials and jumped myself from 20k to 30k gold. I loved it. It felt so nice having that kind of money.....for the 3 days I had it. I pretty much spent it back down to 20k within a week. But I remembered the feeling of having money.
So I started looking and found all the wonderful goldmaking blogs. I found a video from @Faidtastic on the Jewelcrafting Shuffle (Post 4.2 I believe) (I had an alt that had max JC). So I started it. And I got hooked. Now, on my main server, I have over 700k gold, all from getting that spark.
So what is the moral of my story and why I voted on the low end. One word: Motivation. The reason that I said that low level gold making is the hardest to break is because you have to really want to start making gold in some fashion or for some reason. For me, it was that 30k gold mark that I had to break and I had to see how time and energy put into goldmaking could pay itself back. And I love it. Both I and my wife now have Vials of the Sands and Mechanohogs, and I can pretty much buy whatever I want whenever. I wish we had some TCG mounts on our server, but we don't. The story, however, points to motivation. You do really need to do something to push yourself into goldmaking. Making 1 million gold will not just fall into your lap.
Mid Tier Goldmaking (~50k - ~500k gold)
OK, so once you hit a bit of money, you now gain some freedom. And with freedom comes the ability to expand your stock and your business. Now, things that might have been out of your price league now are achievable. For example, at 50k gold, the ability to buy 100 stacks of Cata ore wont break the bank for you. Buying Maelstrom Crystals from the Avengers of Hyjal (buy cloaks at 200ish gold and DE them). Any of these suddenly become available in higher quantities cause you can afford them. Even if something busts, you can recover.
However, everything isn't perfect. I would say that it is still difficult at the low end of this to do some of the high level things that take time. For example, buying lovebirds to flip is considerably harder and takes longer, so you might not want to do this if you are still in the lower tier.
On the flip side, your numbers begin to matter some more. At the low tier, I feel that even small victories (1+ gold profit or what not) are still worth it. It can still be worth it to farm. However, you are now at a point where your time becomes more valuable for crafting and shuffling and it becomes worth it to adjust your goldmaking away from some of the ways you tried to make little. Now, you certainly don't have to and can certainly still work for it, but now you have to start judging for yourself whether it is a good time investment for the time that you have.
Also, you still will have to fight competitors in your markets, though fewer than you did previously. If any of them are huge bankrollers, you might have a tough time keeping yourself in the market. You will be able to stand toe to toe to him for a while, but just be prepared.
Still, once you break probably 100k to 150k, I like it because I still feel it is easy to try new things, but even if they belly up, you aren't back down a tier again.
Finally, why do I think people put this is the hardest tier? Well, first off, we talked about the numbers and the time change. But also, it can be difficult to fight the urge to stop here. After all, once you break about 100k, you aren't really priced out of anything, except for high end mounts (and for some, they aren't even on your server anyway), so why keep going if you can have anything you want. Literally. At 100k, I made the decision to drop my herablism and level engineering from scratch. It cost me a lot, but I could afford it. For some, why not stop there. Many others can get their Vial of the Sands and Mechanohog, even at inflated prices, and still be fine. Hell, buying 10 Traveler's Tundra Mounts (1 for each character) only costs 144k, which once you are at 300k isn't really too bad, so getting up to high tier gold making may not be a big deal.
High Tier goldmaking (Anything higher than the other tiers)
Congratulations, you are the 1%, possibly the < 1%. Even blowing your money on something ridiculous, you will probably never be poor. Want to gear a fresh 85 in all 397 gear, you can afford it and still be good? Want to buy a TCG mount for 300k, you can afford it and still be good. The world is your oyster. Hell, you are probably used to several hundred gold or more AH Fees every day/week/month, but it doesn't stop the train trucking.
Those are the upsides, anything that you can get in game, you could likely purchase at this tier. Hell, even things that may not be obvious for sale can be bought (level 25 guilds, anyone).
Here are the downside I see on this. The biggest one is that your time now can matter a lot more than at the other new tiers. Now, your gold/hr may drop if you go farm an herb, just because you can spin cloth into gold, or ore in gold, or whatever else into gold. That is not to say that you cannot, however, now if you are interested in keeping yourself trucking along, certain avenues may just not be worth it for you. For example, you could decide, with your bankroll, to jump into the mysterious fortune card/fortune cookie market and make bank. You could afford everything that would go into it, even if it meant buying all the cooking stuff at a premium to level it from 1 - 525, etc. However, the question can become is it worth it. If it takes you an extra 1 hour a day to make, say 100 gold profit, when you are making several thousand every day, is that worth the time an effort just to up it an extra 100 gold (I am not giving actual numbers, just ballparking).
Second, motivation here is something that you have to contend with yourself. Honestly, I have done days where I do nothing but shuffle or mill and make glyphs or whatnot and I have had to take breaks. If I am spending hours on end each day shuffling or milling, that can be a job. So, the pull to keep going may not be there. Who cares about shuffling for another 30k gold in 2 weeks if I am not getting anything out of it. Even rewarding yourself may not help because it just doesn't do it for you.
So, the biggest reasons I would say that people would have put that are above. The two reasonings are actually similar: when your routine becomes to routine, it may not be as fun for you anymore. In addition, it may not feel worth it to switch them up because you don't make as much money. Maybe in D3 this might change, when you can get big money from things, but I can definitely see where the burnout could be a contender here.
But for those of you that can hit the gold cap and find enjoyment in the goldmaking that is great.
Its all easy...
So, for those that put this one, I will assume that they are serious. After all, technically, it is incredibly easy to make gold. The philosophy and principles are good, and not too terribly difficult to do. So, for those that get an enjoyment out of making gold, or feel like they are competing with the WoW 1%, then this might be how they truck along. I certainly cannot fault them for that.
The purpose of this game is to do what you love, and some people really love having more and more gold. I would bet that some of these 1%ers would buy a gold statue of themselves if they could (yes, even at 1 million gold).
I'm Rich...
So, yeah, that about wraps up what I wanted to say. I like that this poll turned out as well as I would have hoped. Enough people voted that I felt like I could write something about it and it is interesting to see different people's perspectives on these things. Me personally, I am in the high goldmaking tier, and I may just keep myself at the level I am. I have no real need to make more money. However, with this #onemonthonetoon challenge for me, I may change up the way I do things after my month is done.
Please feel free to comment on anything you read here or want to question me. It is a fun topic to write about in my professional opinion.
In conclusion...
See ya next time...
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