Meet Ohnekase: Poll Results and discussion

Meet the poll I ran last month.

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...

Meet Ohnekase: Going to the Carnival

Step right up, folks.  Step right up.  Come and meet the fantastic Troll Ohnekase.



Earthen Ring, US

We have all seen the great gold-makers working.  @DEAzeroth, @PowerWordGold, @Faidtastic, @AltosGold.  Now, see the magnificent low level gold maker Ohnekase.  He is here today to tell about the wonders of the Darkmoon Faire.  Bring your alts, bring your kids, everyone is invited.

And while you are here, don't miss the great Darkmoon Faire Ponies and Rams.  Get shot out of a cannon, whack gnolls, shoot guns, and for a different flavor, fight to the death in our arena.

And now, without further ado, here he is:  The Troll, the lowbie Ohnekase.

Thank you, Thank you...

So, its the beginning of the month, you are bored and have nothing to do.  You have some auctions up, but you are looking at what else to do.  Go to the Darkmoon Faire.  The Darkmoon Faire (I am going to Abbreviate it to DMF) is a new feature introduced in 4.3 that is an excellent gold making opportunity for those that know where to look.

"But wait," you ask, "the Darkmoon Faire wants me to pay gold for stupid tickets.  I can't get anything from there, its just a dumb island."  And that my friends, is why we make sure to look in places where others don't think about.

So, lets get started on ways to make money in the DMF.

But where the heck do I go...

To get to the Darkmoon Faire, just go see this NPC.

This is the Darmoon Faire Mystic Mage.  For a small fee (which scales based on level), she will teleport you to your factions DMF portal:  Alliance to Goldshire and Horde to right outside Thunder Bluff.  The fee is pretty paltry:  If you are 85th level, its 30 silver.  Low level characters pay much less.

Before you go, make sure to pick up their Darkmoon Faire Quest.  It will give you a Darkmoon Adventure guide and some free stuff.  Very worth it, trust me (we will get to that).

Once you get to Goldshire/Thunder Bluff, go through the portal.  You will then be in a spooky forest (ooooohh...) 

Don't panic, just follow the path.  The signs will direct you to the DMF.  Just don't look too closely at the Spooky eye, it will be looking around.  Speaking of the spooky eye, I am really interested to see what plot points could come out of the Darkmoon Faire.  Maybe the spooky eye is an Old God with crazy plans.  I am excited to see what they do with it.

Go turn in the quest (if you need to) and get your guide.

 Now that you know how to get there (which I am told is half of the battle), lets go over things to do before, during and after.

Before you go to the Faire...

OK, so the first thing I like to recommend is to get your professions (primary and secondary) to at least 75.  Once you hit level 75 in your profession, there are several Darkmoon Faire weeklies that you can go do.  Each of these weeklies will give you XP, money, Darkmoon Faire Tickets, and a 5 point skill up in your profession (which is huge).  It is a pretty good idea to do this if you ask me.

In addition, make sure not to go to the Darkmoon Faire empty-handed.  Some of these DMF weeklies ask you to make stuff, with some of your own stuff.  The following profession quests at the DMF require certain items.

Alchemy:  5 Moonberry Juice
Cooking:  5 Simple Flour
Inscription:  Light Parchment
Archeology:  15 Fossil Fragrments
Leatherworking:  Coarse Thread, Shiny Baubles, and Blue Dye
Tailoring:  Coarse Thread, Red Dye, and Blue Dye.

The rest of the professions should be able to be done without taking anything with you (if I missed something, let me know).

At the Faire...the secret DMF Black Market

There are several things you can do once you are at the Faire.

First, you know how I just listed a bunch of items you need for your profession quests.  Why not take a few of everything and bark in general that you have them for say, 5 gold.  You might get a little trolled, but I guarentee you people will look and go, "Oh shoot, I am a Tailor and I forgot my dye and thread.  Eh, 5 gold is nothing.  It is worth trying.  You might be out 15 silver at max, even if nothing sells.  But I expect a lot will (after all, lots of people have cooking).  Again, you are saving people time.

If you are going to do this (and I would recommend it), I would say to just keep the General chat open and post in it every 5 minutes or so.  That way, you aren't really spamming, you aren't horribly annoying, and you can get other stuff done.  I would bark something like this

"Did you come to the Darkmoon Faire, but forgot your profession items?  Don't wanna go back and grab that [Simple Four].  I have all profession mats for each of the Faire's profession quests.  5g.  PST."

Something like that.  Remind them of the Profession quests, remind them of the items they might have missed.  Worst case, you really aren't out much.

At the Faire...The Tickets.

So the games are just a gold sink right.  Just a place for you to throw money away.  Well....sort of.  The tickets themselves can be traded for heirloom gear, pets, mounts, and replica armor items.  For the most part, the heirloom gear, pets and mounts probably aren't gold makers (though heirloom gear can be a time-saver and time is money, friend).

However, @Faidtastic pointed something very interesting out at the beginning of the Faire:  The replica items are Bind on Equip.  So, for us enterprising gold makers, it might be worth it to, say, pick up the Replica items for sale later on the Auction House.

Now, this is not something I am intimately familiar with.  But I will try it out and see what we can.  Transmog is huge right now, and I think there is a market for it.

At the Faire...Frogs.

Meet Flik

Borrowed from Wowwiki

He is a little Orc boy who is selling items.  He has 2 pets you can buy from him:  The Tree Frog Box and the Wood Frog Box.  What better way to use those than to sell them on the Auction House.  While you are running around, look for him and pick up a couple of Frogs, they are worth a little bit at least :).

He also has Heavy Leather Balls for like 20 copper.  I would love to try and make a market out of those (cause they are so cheap), but I am not sure if they would sell.  Anyone wanna try and it let me know, could be fun.

At the Faire...Farming.

Ok, so here is fantastic way to get some good money from the Darkmoon Faire:  Ignore the faire.  It sounds crazy, I know, but lets look at the island itself.

Head down to the docks and just run around the the southern part of the island, then run the up western part.  What do you see?

First, we see crabs.  Darkmoon Tide Crawlers, I believe.  They are pretty low level @ 10 and 11.  We can kill them.  They drop Crawler Meat and Crawler Claws.  Those are good for Cooking.  Cooking is a good thing, and people want items they can push past.  (I think it is somewhere between 50-100).

So while you are collecting those, what do you see in the water?  well there is open water and a bunch of planks and such.  Wait a minute, that isn't just random planks.  Those are actual "schools".  Back when I was talking about fishing, I said that you can fish from schools and are guarenteed to catch stuff.  It doesn't matter if you have 1 fishing or 525 fishing, you will get a catch from those.

So what do you get from this: 

http://www.elsanglin.com/fish/sealed_crate_cataclysm.html

I figured I would just link you over to els extreme anglin, cause it has everything.  But lets list it here.

Cata Food and Darkmoon Faire Food (we can sell this to vendors usually, but still...)
Embersilk Cloth (at least 2 gold each)
Cata herbs (these are very volatile in price.  I have seen them as low as 75s ea and as high as 15 g ea.  Avg is usually 3-5 gold.)
Cata Ore (usually around 2-7 gold ea)
Small chance of potions, elixirs, leather, and volatiles (all of which can sell pretty well).

So, you can literally spend 1 hour running up and down the shores, killing crabs, and fishing and walk away with 100s of gold worth of stuff.  And we didn't have to do much to get it.  I call that a win.

Other things you can do at the Faire...

For now, I am just going to reserve this slot, cause I think there might be more at the Faire itself.  If you have anything to add to this, comment, email or just drop me a line.  I want this to be a better guide.

With the Darkmoon Adventure Guide, Gold can show up in other places.

What do I mean here?  Well, that Darkmoon Adventure Guide I told you to hold onto.  Well, keep it in your inventory.  When you have it in your inventory, you have a change to get a Blue quest item from Instance Bosses, Player Corpses in Battlegrounds, and raids.  The kills themselves have to be your appropriate level, but the drop rate is pretty good.  And they can sell ok, depending on the markets on your server.

On Power Word Guild, My Rogue PVPed a lot.  As such, I ended up with a lot of the three Darkmoon Faire Quest Items, and they sold for a while between 10 gold and 50 gold ea.  Not great, but not bad at all either.

If you are running Heroic Dungeons at 85, keep an eye out for the Treatise of Strategy, as that usually pulls a goodly amount due to its rarity right now.

So lets get Ohnekase to the Faire...

So, Ohnekase is going to visit the Darkmoon Faire, do the game, and spend about 1/2 hour fishing and farming.  Let's see what we can get from it.

Here we go...

Starting gold:  5119g 47s 11c

So, first, i am going to grab a few trade goods to see if I can catch anyone needing te professions.  Because it is Monday morning, I am not expecting much, but I will try.


Now to the Mystic Mage to get to the DMF.

Once I am in here, I am going to start barking every five minutes or so that I have the professions items if they forgot them.  My macro is going to be something like this

"/1 Did you forget your items to turn into the DMF?  Get them delivered.  I have the mats for the profession quests.  5g, PST."

OK, next I am going to go in and do what profession quests I can.  Its worth XP and $$$.  Plus I am going to see if Flik is around.

So, for profession quests, I can only do the Mining one, cause my Jewelcrafting and other professions are not high enough.  Oh well, I can do it next month.

Ok, now for the big money maker.  I am going to give myself an imposed 15 minute fishing limit so we can see how well I do in 15 min.   For this I am just going to run up and down the coast and fish from any of the crates that pop up.

Here we go:

Hmmm, so we are at a strange spot.  We have at least 1 other person fishing for these with us, possibly 2.  Both have mounts and likely the ability to track fish.  I do not.   I am thinking I may wait an hour or so.  If you were doing this, i would just recommend going and doing other stuff for a big, then coming back to this. So I think I will revisit this shortly.


Also, you can look at coming back here on times and days when fewer people are at the DMF anyway.  Times like Tuesday nights (people are raiding), anytime during the AM (people are sleeping, etc.  More or less, just keep an eye on your server specifically.

So, we will be right back.

OK, so we went up and down the beach.  It took me about 7 or 8 minutes.  I found probably 6 or 7 crates of stuff.  It is a lot of stuff.  So we will just call it there (that way I kinda hit about 15 mintutes with the time I spent earlier) and it was still profitable.

So, lets go to Thunder Bluff and sell a few things at the AH.

These were just a couple of nice things to sell.  They are selling for decent, so I will try.  If they don't sell, I wont lose sleep over it.  Lets look at the whole auction.

Ok, so we will check up on this later, but post it for now.

Later...


As I am finishing up writing this, I thought I would post the first part of later.

So, I will update with screen shots and we will go from there.

Conclusion


So yeah, the DMF is incredibly good for getting some good capital.  In 15 minutes of fishing (ish) I can pull probably over 100 gold.  For a low level with nothing, and little investment, that is huge.  I will keep you updated.  Try it out this or next month.

So until next time.


See ya next time...


Acknowledgements...


This is a great low level goldmaking tip and I need to give props to @Powerwordgold and @faidtastic for their tips on these.  It fits really well with my blog, but I think I heard it from them first.  Make sure you check out other posts on this as well.  Mine is just the piece of the pile.  Cause this is a great low level goldmaking tip.

#onemonthonetoon Twitter Following.

Ok, so this isn't a blog post about making money, but let me explain.

So @Powerwordgold had a challenge for himself to only play one character for a month.  Well, when I was discussing this with my wife and the concept of it, she  told me that she thought it would be difficult for me to actually follow this as well.  Well, I took this as a challenge from her and jumped on it.  So I am working on this challenge.

Do not fret or anything.  I am still going to do the blog.  That is the one time I can play a different character, is if I need something for the blog specifically.  And I do intend to write up a post.  However, due to a lot of real life changes for me, I have been slacking on this.

For the challenge of playing one character, however, I have been discussing my daily things on Twitter.  I am going to copy those here do you can see them.

Tweets (From @WoWohnekase)

#onemonthonetoon So, it is happeneing. I am also doing this one month one toon thing. Working on going through my stuff. too much stuff.


#onemonthonetoon Day 1 (Feb 20): Did Blasted Lands run, Did 2 dungeons, and tried 3 times for a LFR for the first time, suceeded once.


#onemonthonetoon Day 2 (Feb 21): Didn't play too long, but did Blasted Lands again and Did a Well of Eternity Dungeon.


#onemonthonetoon Day 3 (Feb 22): Didn't play for more than 10 minutes in the morn. Instead, went to my card shop and played some M:TG.


#onemonthonetoon Day 4 (Feb 23): Did Blasted Lands and worked on Consortium Rep by running Mana Tombs. Also, did some LFD and LFR.

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#onemonthonetoon Day 5 (Feb 24): Did not log on. As a side note, been messing around with Magic the Gathering online.

#onemonthonetoon Day 6 (Feb 25): Played a bit. More blasted lands and a LFD again.

#onemonthonetoon Day 7 (Feb 26): Did a little Consortium rep leveling. Trying to get me an allowance of BC gems. @Faidtasticreminded me.

#onemonthonetoon Day 8 (Feb 27): Listened to the@PowerWordGold podcast and tried to farm up a Baradin Fox Kit. So far, no luck.

#onemonthonetoon Day 9 (Feb 28): Listened to @Faidtastic & tried to farm up a Baradin Fox Kit. Did an LFD and then some PVP. Had a great AV


#onemonthonetoon Day 10 (Feb 29): Started to do some PVP, then decided I didn't feel like playing WoW.


#onemonthonetoon Day 11 (Mar 1): Did not play. Thursday is my DnD night.


#onemonthonetoon Day 12 and 13 (Mar 2 and 3): Did not play. Spent time finishing Uncharted 3 and Playing some Mass Effect 1 to get achieves

I will keep this updated.  Cause it is fun.

Meet Ohnekase: Why Transmog BoEs sell really really well.

Meet Amastacia

Oh, look it is Ohne....wait, what?  Not Ohnekase

Ohnekase is around, and I will be referencing him, but I decided to start with meet Amastacia today.  Why?  Well, honestly, I like her look better.  I love the fact that she matches and looks really different.  As such, she is a great introduction to this blog.

Ok, so you saw my blog post earlier about Ohnekase's foray into transmogriphication.  It didn't work as well as I wanted it to, but I still made money on it.  And I kept at it (albeit using @DEAzeroth's mog list), and I have been making money.  Well, I logged on this morning and checked my mail.  Wouldn't you know it, I broke 3000 gold.  Not only did I break 3000 gold, but I smashed it and went up to 5000 gold.  Seriously, take a look at Ohnekase's Gold Amount and my sales data for the past little bit.  Its crazy.

Bloodscale Guantlets sold for 1500 gold.  Crazy awesome and crazy good.  I haven't left Orgrimmar in weeks.  And if you do the math, I have earned more than 3500 gold just on Transmog alone.  Why has it been so profitable?  Because BoE transmogriphication sells.  Transmog gear sells really well.

Well, if that was all I wanted to write about, this would  be a really short and boring blog post.  However, @Faidtastic asked if there was a site around about the theory of transmogriphication.  When I could not think of any, I decided to make something myself.

Before we begin...

Before we get started lets go over some ground rules. 

First, this is not a primer on what BoE Items to go out, buy and make a bunch of money.  If you want that, there are other sites that do it so much better.  My big recommation is to follow @DEAzeroth on Twitter.  My other big recommendation the Power Word:  Gold blog.  @DEAzeroth (the Mogfather or Keelhaul, whichever you choose) put his specific money making ideas on PW:G and a lot of people have been good about it.  Alto's Goldish Advice and Vile's Auctions blogs also have great things to say about transmog.  I am just going to talk about why BoEs can and should sell for high.

Here are a couple of specific posts that have specific sales advice from the experts:
PW:G and PW:G Hatchery

http://www.powerwordgold.net/2011/11/confessions-of-mogging-fiend.html#more (@DEAzeroth defense of transmog, this might be what I am writing, but I am still writing it)
http://www.powerwordgold.net/2011/12/keelhauls-big-flippin-mogging-list.html (@DEAzeroth's big list.  I use this a lot).
http://www.powerwordgold.net/2012/01/mogging-item-search-and-pricing-with.html (@Powerwordgold helps with Auctionator and using it to make your life a little easier.)
http://www.powerwordgold.net/2012/01/guide-to-farming-instances-for-mogging.html (yay, me.  Hopeless self promotion, but if you want to farm stuff, this will help.)
http://hatchery.powerwordgold.net/2012/01/unabridged-cloth-mogging-flip-list-by.html (@DEAzeroth Cloth mogging list)
http://hatchery.powerwordgold.net/2012/01/unabridged-mogging-plate-flip-list-by.html (@DEAzeroth Plate mogging list)
http://hatchery.powerwordgold.net/2012/01/unabridged-mail-mogging-flip-list-by.html (@DEAzeroth Mail mogging list)

From Vile

http://vilesauctions.blogspot.com/search/label/Transmogrification (this is his label).

From Alto

http://altosgoldishadvise.blogspot.com/2012/02/selling-transmog-items-how-to-price-for.html

Second, my information, while it will be written in my own words, was not gotten on my own.  I did not come up with the golden ticket of Mogging.  @DEAzeroth did.  In fact, he said a lot of it on the Power Word: Gold Podcast # 24 (I believe also # 25 or 26, don't remember).  However, because I couldn't think of a blog that talks about the theory, I thought I would.  So, yeah, credit to him, cause he is awesome.  I wouldn't have done this without looking at him.

Ok, ground rules done.  Here we go:

So why do BoE Transmog items sell so highly...

OK, so as we have talked about, transmogriphication is simply a system where you can take one type of armor and make it look like another item of that same type:  Plate can look like other plate, etc.  You also have to be able to wear it.  Where does that get us?

Three words:  Unique player look.

As @DEAzeroth has pointed out, Transmogriphication give players an untold level of customization on how they look.  I don't have to look like every other player in Cataclysm.  Why would I want to look like I am wearing Rock Plate, when I am a Death Knight and want to look generally creepy?  Why would I want to look like Deathwing (Warrior T13) when I can look like a spiked warrior?  Transmog can do all of that.

Because transmogriphication gives the ability to look like few others in the game, you can show up to the party in style.  Wanna look like a Stormwind Guard or an Orgrimmar Grunt?  There are looks for that (Imperial Plate set and Sentinel Leather Set + Cabalist Shoulders).  Hell, WoWInsider.com just ran an article to look like High Inquisitor Whitemane.  It is really neat.

Let me give you a real world example of the idea of Transmogriphication.  Have you ever looked for an Ipod/Iphone/Ipad/Nook/etc. case?  Ever seen how many there are?  I have.  During the Christmas Season, I worked at Barnes and Noble.  We had probably 40-60 different Nook Cases.  We had a few strong sellers, but pretty much all of them sold.  Why?  Because people were going for looks.  There were a few feature differences, but people wanted certain looks for their Nooks.  From leatherbound book to Organizer black cover to looking like a hardbound book, there were a ton of different styles.

Buying a case for your gadget is no different than buying transmogriphication gear.  When you buy an iPad or Nook, you want them for their features, there price, and how they benefit you.  But, you want them to look different, unique, and/or cool.  You wouldn't willingly settle for something else that is weaker just cause it looks different.  You want the look as well, which is why cases are so expensive and sell so well. 

Transmogriphication is the same idea.  I will give you an example from WotLK.  Back when I was playing Wrath, I got Tier 9 sets with Justice points after ICC came out and I liked the way my rogue looks.  However, I thought Tier 10 looked aweful.  I thought that T10 looked like a Big Daddy reject from Bioshock.  However, the stats were better, so I bought a couple of pieces when I could, while still trying to keep my T9 look as long as possible.  I even threw a tabard over the chest to get away with what I could.  The reason was cause I wanted what I thought was the better look with the better stats that came with T10.  Now, I can keep whatever look I like without having to worry about stats.

In terms of bad looks, here is another example of a single item that I hate.



 This is my Mage.  Level 85 Blood Elf Mage.  I haven't played him much recently (other than for gold making purposes), but he is still fun to play on occassion.  Now, lets look at his ascetic look.  To me, it looks ok.  Not great, not terrible.  The shoulders look a little off, but only a little, and I kinda like the Robe.  But...oh my god, his belt.  I hate that damn belt.  Why the hell do I have a girdle on?  It looks awful.  While wearing it, I expect people to come up and ask me if my Mage is pregnant.  Or, I expect Stone Cold Steve Austin to come and challenge me for the heavy weight championship.  It is just bad.  Would I pay an ethereal to make it look like something else?  Yes, Yes, Yes, 1000 times yes.

OK, great, transmog is good, but who really pays 10,000 gold for a piece of plate mail

If you have been reading @DEAzeroth, lots of people.  But why would people pay for specific items.  Well, in order to answer that question, I will use a few rules.

Oh yeah, pure badass

1) It has to look cool or iconic:  The set needs to look good.  I remember back in Classic, I saw this set and just went "Wow, that is so cool."  Hell this set almost made me play a Paladin and start raiding back in classic....almost.  But that is the idea.  This set shows the idea that some sets are just iconic, which is why rogues where Bloodfang and Paladins wear this.

Another quick example of this is the Bucaneer set.  People like looking like pirates.  They like looking like they would love to start singing "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirates life for me".  It is very inconic and something a lot of people can relate too (just watch out for ninja's they are everywhere).  I put up the Swashbuckler's Eyepatch cause it is iconic.  Guess what?  It sells for 1000 gold.  Cause people want the iconic look.






2) The set has to look unique (See below for example):  Wanna know why I say that?  Look at this:

Sweet, I look unique...just like every other Wrath Armor.

Seriously, look at the Wrath of the Lich King Green items.  They look the exact same.  Sure the color is a little different, but they look largely identical.  I kinda chop it up to the amount of content they put in that these suffered, but you need a set to look unique.

The short answer to why the Mogfather tiered his gear the way he did boils down to that.  You want it to look unique.  You want a player to be able to show their awesomeness without getting outshone by everyone else for their awesomeness.  Hell, the lack of uniqueness is why people loved this feature in the first place.

Oooh...Flesh!

3) Sex Sells: Yes, it is true.  Deny it all you want, but sex sells.  How many men play female characters?  a lot of them.  You know what my response has been (like a lot of others when I have done it)?  Well, if you have to look at someone's butt while you are running around, it might as well be female.  Take a look at the Glorious set to our right.  It is cool, unique, and is plenty sexy on the female form.  Males don't look bad in it either, but lets be honest, females look great in it.

Something else to note is that there are not a lot of tier sets that look like this.  Most of the tier sets cover a lot more than this.  So if you want to go with the sexy look (Black Mageweave also comes to mind), then you aren't really gonna be able to farm the sexy pieces.

I like it, it looks good, but it is easy to get.

4 (correlary of 2) The set cannot be easy to get:  So, one of the things that I was looking at when I first started (and didn't do Transmog right) was to just buy up all of the interestingish looking items on the Auction House, turn around and flip them for high prices.  But most of those didn't sell.  Why?  Well, I broke these rules.  But one of the rules I broke was that I was buying items that were easy to get.

An example from that is the Darkmoon Robe.  I had one sell, which was good, but the other 4 I had bought sat on the Auction House for several months not selling.  Why?  Well, you get them from Rogues Decks.  The Inscription Decks that people use.  Those aren't hard to get.  So they haven't sold.

Another example has been some weapons.  Weapons have not sold well and they have higher deposit fees on the AH.  So they have been sitting.  There are some cool weapons, but people seem to rather get those from instances.  And they aren't too hard to get.


So, those are the rules for what the Mogfather has pointed out has made for good transmog sales.  So lets put them together and talk about why certain items sell.

So, if you look at the Plate Transmog list and look at the first tier (Lets take Glorious as an example), why would anyone pay for it.  Well, first off, lets go over the rules.

1) It looks cool.  It is gold plate.  Even discounting females, it looks unique.  How many others have gold armor that looks like that.

2) It is Unique:  Most the other gold stuff is kinda paladin-like.  This is definitely that way, but any class can use it.

3) It looks sexy:  I mean...come on, did ya see the picture.

4) the Set is not easy to get:  This set does not show up on the AH often.  In fact, I have yet to see it on my main server.  Where do you get it.  AQ 20 and AQ 40.  Who do you know that runs those?  Not many people.  So, if no one is running it, and those that do are still working off of RNG, how often will you see it?  Never.

So, if you wanted something super unique and sexy, Glorious is a good choice.  Would you pay for that set?  Absolutely.

Now the other piece of the price tag (which you don't need to continuously undercut people to sell): there are 2 factors at play for the price tag.  First, Farming the whole set would take a lot of time.  I have run AQ several times and I haven't seen a single piece.  Now imagine I am farming several of these pieces.  Would I pay 10k to save myself hours of farming?  Absolutely.  Money isn't as important to some people as time. 

Second, how many times do I have to buy a tranmogriphication item? Once.  If I buy one set of armor for a super unique look, I am only buying this once.  I don't have to buy it for each set of armor.  Think about that.  How much does one person spend on enchantments over the course of 1 expansion.  I guarantee it is more than 10k.  With a 1k+ weapon enchant, you can spend 3 or 4k just on that.  Add in the added boots, gloves, shoulders, and helm enchants and it adds up quick.  And how often do you buy 1 item that you never have to replace (for what you are using it for).  Transmog offers that.  Your unique look will last you forever.  The only way it won't is if you DE it/sell it/etc.  Is that worth it...for some, absolutely.

Back to Ohnekase...He got the grade...

So real quick before I conclude this.  Ohenkase did it, he got the 3000 that would get him the A.  Hell, he is probably at an A+ grade.  Woot, great.  So, am I done?  Hells no.

But where do I go from here is an interesting question.  I have a little debate for myself.  I can keep the Earthen Ring Ohnekase and keep him making money.  No reason not to really (other than time).  I might also open up my activities on Earthen Ring and use it as a staging ground for the look on the inside (you would see my characters and my experience).

On the other hand, I am considering doing the same thing, but on Lightbringer, US.  That way, I can play with the Power Word:  Guild Crew.  I know it is a huge market, but a Market I can use and meld to what I want to do with it.  It is a tough choice.

So if you have thoughts on this, let me know.  It could be a fun debate for me.

Fine, Fine, but Trolls are still gonna hate on you for putting a level 50 green up for 3000 gold...

Yeah, you are right.  Trolls will always troll.  It is what they do.  They like being their trolly troll self.  But for every troll I hear about, I get at least 10 times the sales, I would normally get.  So why is it a problem.  Who cares If I get hate mail.  Guess what, I got someone calling me a noob yesterday (I really don't know why he did, but he/she did).

So next week, I want to discuss gold mining peaks to get past.  As you notice, I put the poll up on my blog to ask where you all think the hardest peak of gold to get is.  Guess what?  The answers were super varied.  I want to explore why the different peaks are the way they are.

So, until then

See ya next time...