Meet Ohnekase: The Power of Alts

Meet Ohnekase

Welcome to my Main Server.  I am Horde Side on Sentinels-US.  Meet my bank toon (I want to do a full article about the advantages of Bank Toons later).  Ohnekase is wealthy.  He is sitting around 500k gold, just on him.  Across all the characters on my server, I am about 725k, which is cool.  However, Ohnekase himself is kinda useless.  He doesn't really have much in the way of professions, and I don't use him for crafting at all.  How does he have so much money?  One word:  Alts.

So, if you look back on our Getting the Grade series, we found that Jewelry on Earthen Ring sold really really well.  That is great, but it really only took me 5 - 10 minutes to do with that.  And if there was really really cheap jewelry, I couldn't do anything but sit there and wait for it to go away.  But, what if that was not the case.  While each character can have only 2 primary professions, you can have more than one character.

Alts are an amazing tool.  If you look at @Faidtastic, @PowerWordGold, they each have a large pile of alts.  Why?  Because if you have extra alts, you can have them do extra professions without erasing the progress on a different character.  On my main server, I have every professions to max, except Herbalism (cause I dropped it to get Engineering on a character).  This is how I have as much money as I do.  When I just had Alchemy and Herbalism on my main, and only focused there, I didn't really make a lot of money.

So, lets go over the reasons for alts in more details.  Be aware that some of these are gold-making reasons more than game reasons, I will list what they are for.

Goldmaking benefits

1) Diversity:  On a recent Justin.tv stream with @Faidtastic and @PowerWordGold, the question was asked what the one profession is that made the most gold.  While some good answers were had, the best answer is that the best way to make gold in general is not through 1 profession (though you can), it is to diversify.  Let me give an example from my server.

My DK is a Jewelcrafter.  He can cut gems and sell them.  There is a market for this, but why stop there.  When I shuffle (and I haven't done it in a while) for cata ore, I buy Obsidium, Elementium, and Pyrite Ore, prospect it all down, cut the blue gems and sell those on Ohnekase.  If I just stopped there, I would still make money, but why stop there, there is more than one way to bake a cake.  My green gems turn into jewelry, which goes to my mage to DE for dust to make scrolls.  I buy herbs on my Priest for Inscription, then make glyphs, scrolls, and other Inscrip stuff.  I take some of that ore and make stuff on my Warrior for Blacksmithing and my Rogue for Engineering.

By itself, the gems might make me 100s or 1000s of gold over time.  But with the diversity, now I make make more and more and more, just by having more diversity.  Alts provide that diversity.  Even at low level, you can always have an alt or two to turn your useless greens from leveling a profession into dust (low level enchanting allows you to DE any of the low level stuff you get, and gets better as you level it, not hard to do).  Dust sells.  Lets say you get ore somewhere and aren't a miner.  Well, a miner alt, or a Jewelcrafting alt can make use of it, again at low levels.  And you don't need to be high levels to get high level professions.  A 10th level character can train up to 150, 20th level character can train up to 225 (both easy to get).

2) Anonymity:  This I am not going to touch on this much, because it is its own category really.  Anonymity gives you the abillity to do more than a single character would.  This is why most people have bank alts.  You can buy items on one character to send to another character.

For example, lets say someone was selling Valor Bracers (at high end) in trade for a great price.  You know that you can buy them and put them on the AH for double that.  Well, use another character (one that might make use of the items, Rogue for leather, Shaman for Mail, etc.), buy them, ship them to another character, and put them up on the AH shortly after.  That way, the person doesn't think he just sold some bracers to someone who just put it up (which creates animosity) and you can still get profit.

Also, this helps you organize your rage emails to a character.  If someone gets upset at a character, you know what they do?  Frequently, they will mail that person about it.  Or message, or switch factions and grief that character (on PVP servers), or just do some general hating wherever people will listen.  Trust me, very nice to be able to do it on a seperate character to avoid that.

3) Self-Sufficiency:  Part of making money is spending as little as you can for yourself.  If you can make your own stuff, why do you need to pay AH prices for it.  For example, Inferno rubies are really expensive (Last time I checked, they were 300 g + ea).  But if you have an alt, you can cut your own, which saves money, or if you have extra gems, you don't really pay for it itself (this isn't true cause the cost you could sell it for you technically take a hit for, but the idea is still there).

Other (possibly gold making) reasons

1) Diversity:  Yes it is the same, but I still think they fit both there.  If you have a Hunter, you can only DPS.  But if you have a Hunter and a Priest, you can DPS and Heal.  And sometimes, healing comes with its own rewards (Call to Arms comes to mind).  Sometimes you are at 85, wanna do a dungeon and the queue for DPS is 20 minutes.  Well, the Queue for healers and tanks is almost never that, so do it.

A side note on this for people on a PVP server.  Having an alt also gives you the diversity to avoid griefing if you want to.  Have you been killed by the same 85 Rogue for the 5th time in STV and none of your guild is on.  Well, skip him and move on another character.  Its not like that Rogue knows where you are.  And after an hour of doing something else with your other character, the Rogue will have gotten bored and moved on, I am sure.

2) Seperation of Goldmaking and playing time:  This is something that I think might be a good idea for some of my own characters.  So, I have a problem.  Some days, I don't feel like I really play the game.  Sure I am on for 5 hours, but I don't feel like I played.  Why?  Because those 5 hours were done Running Dungeon X, then doing my Jewelcrafting, the crafting on my blah blah blah.  That kind of thing.  All in all, I was on for a while, but all I did was craft.  This is something that can make the game stale. An alt (say a leveling alt on another server or something like that) can make the game continue to be fun.  Honestly, this is why I think I have altidus is that I hit max level and then kinda just stop afterword.  Sure I run a few dungeons here and there, and occassionally play a BG, but that is it.  But then I play a new alt and it is exciting again.  Being able to have some characters that are away from the all the gold making hubub I think can make you appreciate and play more.

But I have yet to do this on my main server, so maybe it isn't quite so.

My Alts

So I have talked about the power of Alts, but what do I have myself and why?  There is a reason after all.  So lets go over them.  Note:  For now, I am not going to include my other characters names cause I want to take advantage of my anonymity.

My Bank Alt

Originally, this character was created to play with my wife.  He still does occasionally, however, she is very good about staying on her Mage, so I let her be there.  For now, this is pretty much where I do all my Auctions.  On a given day, I can post 100-500 auctions.  I use TSM for it cause that addon makes a 4 hour posting cycle take much less.  His guild, <And What Army>, was a guild that I have turned into a bank guild for extra storage, which works really well.

My "Main"

My main, in all his Transmogriphication Glory.  I like the look.  However, he has some advantages as well.  He is an Alchemist and Engineer.  So he occassionally makes and sells pets, Flintlocke's Woodchucker, and transmutes.

Btw, let me know what you think of the Transmog set.  Also, to add to it, I made sure to use the title "the Argent Champion" and I use the Argent Hypogryph.

My Profession Alts

My Jewelcrafting alt.  I also had him grab Tailoring cause I like it for farming cloth.  But the JCer makes me the money definitely.

My Blacksmithing character and Tank.  For Blacksmithing, there are a lot of good things that everyone seems to want (Belt Buckles and Epic Shields).  Occassionally, I will run the Call to Arms and get me a nice set of Bags with money, flasks, and pets.  Happy face.

My Mage is a Tailor and an Enchanter.  Lots of good money from him, even if he is wearing a pregnancy belt.

My Priest is only level 75.  But he has max Inscription and has Alchemy as a side Profession.  He make a lot of Glyphs and some potions.

This is what alts get you.  I can literally make anything I need for any of my characters and can usually keep Ohnekase Stocked.

One last example...

If I did another getting the grade challenge (which I will do something similar), I would add in the ability for using alts in there as well.  Even at low level, I would find a use for them.

Think about it.  At one point, I was debating where to move Ohnekase to: Jewelcrafting, Blacksmithing, or Engineering.  Well, lets say instead that I just made an alt that was Engineering and Blacksmithing and made Ohnekase a Jewelcrafter.  Remember that Ohnekase has a lot of Copper.  Now I can start looking at using more of it.  Then my copper can make even more stuff to try and sell on the AH.  Even the Rough stone could possibly be used.  Even better is that I could make another alt that is Enchanting (and probably tailoring) so that I can DE items as well.

So if I did all that, lets look at what I could do for money.

I buy Copper at 20s ea.  I send it to my JC to make jewelry which sells for 10-15 gold ea.  I then make some low level armor to try and sell for maybe 5 gold ea.  Then I make greens with that copper as cheap as I can and DE them for Strange Dust and Essence.  Strange Dust fluctuates a lot, but we will say I can sell it occassionally for 1 gold ea.

So with copper, I have literally shuffled it all around and made money on it.  Will every avenue work?  Of course not, but then I have the diversity to move around if I need to and try other things.

Conclusion...

So, if you are serious about goldmaking, I would say that you really need alts.  They provide you with so many benefits that one character just cannot provide.  It also gives you some leway to try different things.  Even if you want to just power a character through to 85, make a quick Enchanter to DE whatever it can, so you can prepare for it later.  The benefits are huge.

See ya next time....

Meet Ohnekase: The Basics, Part 3. Knowledge is Power.

"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
- Benjamin Franklin


Meet Ohnekase.

We have met him before, on two occasions.  He is our level 6 Hunter, who is less poor, but still not overly wealth (but I would say that a gold before level 10 is doing well).


Last week, we talked about the basics of finding the items that might sell, and using the Auction House to sell them.  The Auction House will be the number one way we make our money.  The reason is that, while there is money to had from other sources, the Auction House is player driven.  Vendors will always give you the same amount for your item, regardless of how much of it is around.  They don't really care whether you are selling it or not.  But Players do care.  They need what you are selling.


However, this week, we are going to talk about a skill that will help you no matter what character you have and no matter what you are trying to do with your character.  Today, we are going to be talking about Knowledge.  If you are trying to make money, knowledge can help you decide who and where to try it.  If you are trying to level quickly, there are a lot of tips and tricks out there that WoW doesn't tell you.   That is kind of the reason I am doing these articles.  


Ultimately, whatever I do with this podcast, my goal is to show you how to make gold.  It is also the reason I picked a fresh character on a new server.  The idea of a new character is that it is someone who has nothing to their name.  I want to effectively have this character live the American (or Azerothian, in this case) Dream.  It is possible, and it isn't terribly difficult to make money.


So, now that I am off of  the soapbox, lets get into what exactly I would like to talk about.  Today, I would like to tell you about 2 websites that have a treasure trove of information:  WoWHead and The Undermine Journal.  Then, I would like to touch on the subjects of Addons and one addon in particular which I think can help you as you are trying to make gold:  Auctionator.


Using knowledge


Ok, so let's start with an example of I used the knowledge I had to try and sell something on Ohnekase.


So, to be honest, I tried to sell the Chunk of Boar Meat again and it didn't sell (trust me, items not selling is very common).  That is ok, cause I still got that Linen Cloth I had and sold quite it for a good chunk.  But, when I am out question, how would I have known that Linen would have been worth selling on the AH and not the another item to sell to a vendor (and there are items that are probably more worth it to sell to a vendor)?

Don't Ask Me?  Its the person writing the column
who is talking right now?

So, when I found the Linen Cloth, I can go to www.wowhead.com .  There, I looked up Linen Cloth and looked at what it is used for?  It is used for Tailoring and First Aid, so I can try and keep and look at the Auction House later.

If I wanted to see if it is useful on the Auction House, The Undermine Journal can show me the prices and the average price of the item, as well as what is on the Auction House.  And I didn't even have to go look it up myself.

So, lets take a look at each piece specifically.

Using WoWhead.

Well, seeing as how Ohnekase is in Stormwind (you can do similar things in Orgrimmar too), let's take a stroll around and see if there is anything that players could use that we can get here.

First off, why don't we head west, out of the trade district and across the bridge.

Huh, Cordellls Enchanting.  I suppose they are as good as any other

We will try this store first and see what they have.  This is the enchanting trainer and supplier.  Let's see what they have.

Ok, so... what does all this do?

Ok, so now we have a list of items that are sold by the merchant, and a few of them are even only sold in small quantities.  Why don't we check out a few of these items on WoWhead first and lets see what they do.

So, first things first, let's go to www.wowhead.com

www.wowhead.com

Ok, so right now, I have 2 things.  One, I can see some information below on new information about the next upcoming patch (which also is good information, but you can look into that later).  Above, though, it has a text field that I can put anything in there I want and it can tell me about it.  So lets put in "Strange Dust" into the text box and....

Well, it knows what we want, so lets click into it:

It gives us all of the information on the Strange Dust.  It will tell us who sells in (in case it works well for us), what it disenchant's from (which is a product of "Enchanting), What it is a "Reagent" for (what is it used in making) and any other comments that the readers of the site have to offer.  In addition, a newer feature is that it also has a "Buyout Price" listed for it in the top-right corner.  The average buyout price there is the Average of what it estimates it will go for on the Auction House.

One other nice feature is that nearly everything here is clickable.  Want to find the First guy on the list that sells it, click on his name and it can take you to his page, with information on him.  It is also not restricted to silly little things like items and people.  Need quest help, you can type in the quest and it will have some information on it.

This site is amazing.  I could go on and on and on about this site and its uses.  However, let's get back to items.  This item we know is used for something, and if we believe this "Buyout Price" thing it has, the 7 silver, 60 copper price they want us to pay for these, seems less than the 50 silver that we might be able to get it.  So lets buy that, and while we are at it, lets look at this other item "Lesser Magic Essence"

So, looking at this site, it looks like Lesser Magic Essence is also used in Enchanting.  Also, it looks like the 80 silver price they are telling us is better than the 7 Silver we can buy it for.  So let's buy that too.

I just spent 30 Silver, but any one of these items sells for close to the wowhead site is telling us, we can make a profit.

The Undermine Journal

So, Wowhead has that field that tells us a relative buyout price on the Auction House, but that only gives us a ballpark figure.  We don't know exactly what it is selling for on our server's Auction House.  But theunderminejournal.com does (within about an hour).

Theunderminejournal.com

This site contains auction information on every single US Realm Site (And some EU Realms).  This particular site can give you a treasure trove of economic information on any item you want to know about.  Is it helpful for questing?  Probably not.  Is it helpful for selling items?  Absolutely.

So, lets use the items have and get some information about them on our server specifically.

So, first, lets select our server.

For Ohnekase, it is Deathwing Alliance Side

Ok, so this is what we should be looking at.  Below are some articles from various gold-making blog sites.  Again, these are great tools and I would highly recommend them.  However, one thing that isn't always great about them is a lot of them are written as though you are 85, which we are trying not to be.

However, what we are interested in is the top part.  Above it has 2 neat things.  First is that it has an Item/Seller search.  This is nice if you want to find out specific information about an item.  I can also help us later out if we run into some competition from someone and we want to take a look at what they are selling as well.  Very handy indeed.

The second feature it has, is in its automatic lists.  It will tell you about specific profession items, companion pets, and various other helpful things.  Clicking on on of these sub-tabs will give us some information about specific items with all the basic information on each (price, average cost, etc.)

However, while the automatic lists are cool, lets take a look at just a basic item search, so we can get an idea of how to use it.

So, to get information about our Strange Dust we have, lets go ahead and type "Strange dust" into the Item search text box.

Ok, so I posted all three of these screen to show you the massive amount of information on something as simple as this item.  Just this one item we have basic stats, we have a graph showing its price rises and falls, we have information on when it is posted, we have a graph of the comparisons between this and other servers, and we even have what is posted at the moment, and by whom.  And remember, that is just one item, we can do this with any item.


Sorry, I just can't gush enough about this site, cause it really is very handy.  It gets even better if you register a name on here (using a gmail or twitter or whatnot), cause you can sign up (I believe you will have to pay for it soon) for notification on when an item is below a certain price, or when someone posts, or you can set it up to *mostly* tell you when you what has actually sold (which is a nice feature).


So, lets use the information to see if our Strange Dust is worth selling and what it sells for.

It looks like it is lowest selling for 48 silver and 50 copper.,  the next one up 48 silver 75 copper.  So lets try posting something up for that

So, that is up too, notice that my Chunk of Boar Meat is still up.  :(. 


Addons and Auctionator


Ok, so we have information that we can get information from another site.  But while we are leveling and into our grove, we dont want to go check these other sites.  They might be great just before we are going to put it up on the Auction House, but really...

Addons are amazing tools to help with this (and just about anything else you would like them to do, just short of playing the game for you).  So, I would like to get an addon to help me know about what items will go for so I can find out information about an item without having to leave the game.


Auctionator can do just that.  Plus it can help make our Auction House a little more managable to use (in my opinion).


To install an Addon, here is how you do it.


1) Go to an addon site (I personally use www.curse.com)
2) On Curse, click WoW Addons
3) Type in the name of the Addon are looking for.
4) Make sure it supports the version you are looking at, and make sure it doesn't have weird installation instructions (Auctionator should not)
5) If not, go ahead and Download it (Click the Download button, than the "Manual Installation"
6) Unzip the folder and make sure you put it into the World of Warcraft Folder (specifically, in World of Warcraft/Interface/Addons folder)
7) When you log in, it should automatically be enabled.  You can double check this with the "Addons" button in the character selection screen.


So, theoritically, you have the addon installed, so lets go ahead an enable Auctionator on my system.


Done, now lets look at the auction screen and see what is different.

Ok, so the first thing I like about Auctionator is that it doesn't actually change the Base Auction House Interface.  So (for me if it rare, but...) if you want to actually look at something in the base Auction House, you can.


What it does do, is adds 3 more tabs that can give you extra information.  Lets check the Buy, Sell, and More... Tab.


Buy Tab

OK, so what does the buy tab do?  Simply put, it has a better organization for items if you are looking at buying them.  Rather than showing you just a list of the individual items and such, it stacks them up, so it can give you more information.


For an example, lets say we wanted to buy some Linen Cloth and search them both ways.

Basic UI Time

Auctionator Buy Tab 1

Auctionator Buy Tab 2

Ok, so the Basic search tab gives me both "Bolts of Linen Cloth" and "Linen Cloth" on it, and it has just one individual item.  The "Buy" Tab of Auctionator does this differently.  First, it gives us a choice of what item we are looking for (screen 1).  Then, when we click into Linen Cloth (Screen 2) it will show us the Linen.  But, rather than individual listings, it shows us them in a stacked manner.  I can now see everything that is on the Auction house, and I can see how much they are going for per item.  So if I am buying in some form of bulk, I can buy it as cheap as I need to.

Sell Tab

So, what I like about the sell tab of Auctionator, more than the Default UI is that the Sell tab will give us information about what is already up, and it will help undercut auctions automatically (if you want it to).

So, lets go ahead and post the "Lesser Cosmic Essence" that we bought.

TIP:  To put it up to post, you can either click the item, then click the Auctionator window, or you can ALT+Click on the item.

So, this will give us what is already up on the Auction House.  In this case, there isn't much, so its information may not be good.  However, notice that what is selected, it automatically undercuts by a small amount.  If I wanted to just be quick and just post it, it has already undercut the lowest bid (or any other bid I select) and I can just post it.  I can also change the stack size and the number of stacks, like the default UI, and I can change the duration.  This would be why I likes these a lot.

Full Scan and information from it...

So, if you look at the top right, there are two buttons:  "Full Scan" and "Options".  Options should be fairly obvious what it does, but honestly, I haven't needed to mess with the options much., which is kinda nice.

The "Full Scan"  Button will scan the auction house and store it for you, so you can get the information automatically on your items.

Lets check it out on a before and after.

First, I am going to go grab an item.  Maria Lumere has some Herbs that is used in Herbalism (Check Wowhead to find out where she is and what else she has ;).  So, we bought a Mageroyal.

Here is what the Full Scan adds to the tooltip.

Before

The Scan

After the Scan

So, now I have an easy update to my tooltip which can make searching through stuff easier.

If you would like more information about Auctionator (cause there is quite a bit more information, i just gave you the basics), search around in google, or you can check out http://www.powerwordgold.net/2011/08/auction-basics-auctionator-and.html

Gold Blogs

So, you can call this self-serving if you want, but I thought I should at least mention blogs as a great way to get knowledge.  The reason is simple:  Gold Blogs are an example of people who are sharing the knowledge that they have gained.  Personally, I know that I have used gold blogs a lot to gain some of the knowledge of gold making.

The few I have attached to my site are well written and interesting gold blogging sites.  They may not have only low level tips, but the tips are still nice.  In addition, I know that there is some discussion on other gold making addons.  They are definintely worth checking out.

You are learning, young grasshopper

So, all of these tools are just that:  tools.  They cannot immediately make 1 million gold.  But they can make it a lot easier.  Play around with these sites and mods.  Learn what they can do.  I have been playing this game fairly consistently since the game came out, and I reference these sites and read the gold blogs quite often.  They have helped too.

So, now I feel like a few of the basics have been covered, which is good.  So, next week, we will start looking into using professions to make us some money while we are actually playing the game.  Specifically, next, we will start with the Skinning profession and see what it can do for us.

Thank you for reading and...

See ya next time....


PS:  So, I did sell my Lesser Magic Essence.  Which means that I am now rocking 4 gold.

Meet Ohnekase: The Basics, Part 2: Item Rarity, Making Profit, and using the Auction House

Meet Ohnekase:

Deathwing, US

You may remember him from last week (if you read the post).  He is our beginning Hunter that is just starting out in the world and trying to make money.  Right now, though, he is level 6 and poor.

That is ok, though.  We are working on that.  As you may recall, last week we covered the basics of looting everything and maximizing money when you can (in this case, through selling Quest rewards when they are not needed.  This week, however, lets discuss item rarity and how to use the auction house to sell some of the stuff that we find.  Using the Auction house, we can definitely turn this 10s plus items into some gold.

Item Rarity


In World of Warcraft, not all items are created equally.  Some items are just in the game so that they can be sold.  Other items have some use in the game and, therefore, can have more value to a player than to a merchant.  To make it a little easier, Blizzard designed the tooltips to give us a better idea of exactly what the item is for.

As such, we will look at 3 different types of items.  These are going to be taken from www.wowhead.com (a great resource, btw).

Also know as Vendor Trash

Used in Cooking

Used in Engineering, Blacksmithing, and more...

So, we have 3 different items, each with a different "Rarity".  The difference in the items are in the color of the text.  Gray means that the item has no use and should probably be sold to a vendor (unless you want it for some other reason).  The white and green text, however, mean that it does have some use inside of the game.  In our example above, Chunks of Boar Meat can be used in Cooking and Silver Bars can be used in Mining, Engineering, Blacksmithing, and a handful of other uses.  So, this means that if we have those items, they can likely be worth more than the sell price listed.

NOTE:  There are several other kinds of text colors, however, we are covering the basics, so we can just stick with those.

So, where is the easiest place to get more money for these items?  The Auction House, of course.

The Auction House

So before we go to the Auction House with Ohnekase, lets have him find something to sell.

Hey look at that.  Something useful.

Well, wouldn't you know?  Ohnekase wandered around, kill half a dozen boars, and came upon this item.  Now, I may not know exactly what it is used for, it is used for something, so lets keep it and see if someone has a use for it on the Auction House.

NOTE:  The Auction Houses are located in your capitol city.  In the case of Ohnekase, it is located in Stormwind, which is just north and west of Goldshire.

Wow, those are big claw marks.

Once hear, you can talk with a Guard and he can show you where the Auction House.

Wow....There are a lot of people here.

Once you find the auction house, talk with one of the Auctioneers to see the Auction Screen.  Lets take a look around the default Auction House UI.

OK, so where do we start?

OK, so here it is in all its glory.  Ok, so it doesn't look that great, but it can make us a lot of money if we can learn to use this.  So, lets go over each Tab and discuss what can be done with this.

Browse Tab:  This is the tab you start on.  It is basically a search for any item you are looking for.  Just type the item into the "Name" Field, and it will pull up all of the Auctions for that item.  If you aren't exactly sure, you can type in a partial name and it will match that name.  For example, typing in "Chunk of Boar Meat" will pull up the meat that we are looking for.  However, if you aren't sure, you can just type in "Boar", however it will also give you items that have the word boar in it.  See screen prints below:

Uhh, wait, this isn't what I was looking for.  Let me try again.

Ah, that is better.

Finally, on this tab, if you are looking for a specific category of item, then you can filter it on the side there.  Just click on a tab and it will Filter the item.

For Example, lets search the word "Boar" again, but this time, lets put the filter of "Trade Goods" on.

Hey, look at that.  It gives me other stuff,
but I can at least see what I was looking for.

So, in this case, it shows us Chunk of Boar Meat, in addition to the Boar Ribs and other things.  This can be helpful if you are looking for materials for your professions, but don't want a bunch of random stuff.

If you want to put a bid or just buy the item out (which is used far more often), the you can look at the bid and buyout price.  If it is something you want, just click the item, then the "Bid" or "Buyout" buttons at the bottom.

Bids:  Not really much to say here, so I want talk about it too much.  If you have put money down on an item, you can see it here.  If someone else outbids you on an item, you can use this tab to bid again on that same item.

Auction:  Ok, so here is where we can take a step in and decide how much we think people will buy our stuff for.  On the right, it shows us what auctions we have put up, how the bidding is going (if there is), and how long it has left.  On the Left side, the interface is set up so we can post items.  We can tell them how much of a bid price we want, and how much of a buyout price we want on these items.

So, for this, lets put up an auction of our Chunk of Boar Meat and see what happens.  First, we click the Chunk of Boar Meat in our inventory and drag it to the Auction Item box.

Ok, so now what?

So, as you can see, the screen is now asking for a "Starting Price" (where to start the bidding at) and a "Buyout Price".  So, here is where we want to decide what price to post it at.

Now, when I post stuff on the AH (Auction House), I always want to find out what other auctions are going for and price it based on that.  After all, it doesn't make any sense to put this up for 50 gold if there are none above 3 gold.

So, let's search Chunk of Boar Meat and look at the prices.

So, it looks like we should post it somewhere between 33 silver and 1 gold.

So, the costs of the 1 items are 33 silver and 9 copper.  If you do the math, the 12 and 20 Chunks of Boar Meat are going for about a gold.  So, the question is, what should we price our Chunk of Boar Meat at that people might buy it.

In this case, I think that if someone is going to want Boar Meat, they are going to want a lot of it (at least 10), because of its use in Cooking, so i am going to try something different an post it for a bid of 33 silver (in case someone really wants to bid on it, which I doubt), and then I am going to post a Buyout of 50 silver.  It won't sell first, certainly, but I am pretty sure that someone buying it is going to buy a few, so they will buy mine right up with the person below, so I may as well make a little bit more on it.  I am not posting it at 1 gold because I think that someone who wants a lot will probably buy the 12 or 20 for a gold each.  As such, we will try for 50 silver and see what happens.

Awesome Auction Tip (save this for later):  People will pay for convenience.  If there are 25 auctions in single items and one auction of, say, 20 or 25, people will buy the 20 or 25 usually, even if it is a little bit more.

Lets try another, just so we can look at the thought process for posting:

Ok, so last week, when I was killing Kobolds, I came across some Linen Cloth.  Linen Cloth is used by Tailors and people who want to do the First Aid skill (anyone can learn it).  As such, I think it might sell too, so, lets take a look at the process

Step 1:  What is Linen Cloth Selling for on the AH?

Wow, these look promising for a poor man like myself.

Ok, so I had to scroll for a bit, because there were "Bolts of Linen Cloth" above mine, but here is what we are looking at.  Not too shabby.  It looks like the average price for these is 93 silver.  So, because I am poor, and would like to get some starting cash (training isn't cheap you know), why dont we undercut the 93 silver price and see if someone wants to buy it.  So, I would like to put it somewhere between 75 silver and 90 Silver cause that prices it low that someone might want to buy it.

So My auction window will look like this:

I decided on 85 silver per cloth, so I am charging 2 gold 55 silver for all 3.

So, once that is done, then lets post it up and we can be done here.

Ok, so now what...?

Well, this is the part that drives me crazy.  We wait.  We have items up and we have to hope they sell.  In my opinion, we are likely to sell them, but there is no guarantee.  For now, we will be patient and check back later.

If they do sell, we will receive mail giving us the money for the sale (the greedy auctioneers take 5% of the purchase price).

So, for now, we will finish this post.  I will check back later and I will attach some info if they pay.

For next week, we are going to learn about doing our homework ahead of time, so that we can know how much to put our auctions up for.  If you would like to study before the blog, check out:

http://www.wowhead.com

http://theunderminejournal.com

These sites are a treasure trove of information to us.

See ya next time....


Update:  Well, it has been two days, lets check on my auctions.

Hurray, 2 gold 43 silver.

Ok, so the Chunk of Boar Meat did not sell.  Perhaps my pricing was off.  That is ok, though, cause we can try again later.

However, look at that Linen.  2.5 gold for 3 pieces of cloth.  That is very nice, and perhaps something that we could note in the future.  Well, for now my character has 2 gold 51 silver.  Not too shabby for starting out.  It definitely gives us some starting capitol so we should have to worry about much until at least lvl 20.  And we plan on getting some more money making opportunities in the coming weeks.