Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Community

 I posted this on the mmochamp forums and thought it was one of those things i just had to share with the world as if I were some kind of non herp-derp player.

Referring to why we keep playing wow...

The people. Nethaera said something about where else would you get such a diverse community to come together and the truth is i really don't know. I've played with MDs, lawyers, PHD students as well as insurance claims adjusters, assembly plant workers, the unemployed, and a slew of college and highschool students. Men, women, young, old, it doesn't really matter because we're all enjoying ourselves under a common element. One of my best friends in game would probably hate me in real life because of the simple fact that our politics differ significantly, but we'll be on vent for 3 or 4 hours in an evening and even if subjects we disagree on do come up we can have an intelligent conversation over it. And thats the other thing that keeps me coming back. Despite the dimwitted and unintelligent, the trolls and white knights, there are a few diamonds in the rough that stand out and every time they speak I'm just awestruck at how amazingly intelligent they are. I joke but if you had a dozen of the most intelligent, common sensed, goal oriented people from each realm join together to create a think tank, they could save the world, if they weren't to busy saving Azeroth that is...

MC: Molten Core and Maelstrom Crystals

We Three Paladins...Remember how i said i ran Molten core a lot?  yeah well this is what my paladin looks like, along with the use of a couple secret potions of win. Anyway, this post is more about the latter MC than the former.  If you have any Maelstrom crystals that you're pushing out for less than 3k apiece you may want to hold onto them.  Now that the maelstrom farm is gone and we don't have a reliable source anywhere near as cheap as alch trinkets to DE we're looking at blacksmithing shields possibly which are 3 truegold and 3 hardened elementium apiece plus whatever orbs you'd have to have the blacksmith attain in heroics.  I would keep an eye on your markets, Crystals on ally side my server are already over 4k per and they're getting there hordeside.  Good Luck, and godspeed...i know that's not MC but my T2 is so much more badass.

Friday, January 21, 2011

What is this I don't even

Blogging is what all the cool kids do these days, right?  Right. Lets talk about gold and how you make it.  No, not in real life, in a video game.  I'm talking about world of warcraft.  You all know that game that has all of what, 13 million subscribers now. I play on a mediocre backwater server where the most progressed 10man guild as of today is working on nef and as far as 25mans go, well...nef is still standing in Blackwing Descent, Halfus is the only one taking a dirt nap in Bastion and we all know how easy council is in Conclave provided the folks on your caster platform aren't related to Herpderp(not that i don't love Herpderp and he will most definitely be my favorite npc for some time to come). 

I said something about making gold didn't I...well i started off this expansion with about 50k gold.  I figured that would be a nice little next egg for progressing into the great unknown that we, er, uh, "know" as cataclysm(bad joke, i know...see what i did there). most of the gold from wrath that i made came from not wiping in raids, farming bosses in MC weekly, and selling gems.  Go ahead and throw those 3 out the window for the most part.

While I still farm MC on a regular basis for a few non existent legendary weapons, the gold you'll get in there isn't worth your time, hell it wasn't really worth it before but it was something to do.  As far as raids go, If it weren't for the BoE epics from Bastion trash that we've been able to sell for guild repairs I'd be down a lot of gold due to wipes from disconnects, failing at mechanics, and all around moments of derp. The one thing i have been able to keep a hold on is jewel crafting.  Cutting blue gems themselves aren't worth all that much money.  Not because the markup on them isn't substantial but because they don't move at a rate that will net you a large amount of gold.  I can get up to 100% markup on cut red and purple gems while blues and greens only move at a measly 1 or 2 per day with 10-15% markup from buying the raw mat.  Now thats mostly me being greedy because I've got stacks of blue quality gems sitting in my bags.  sure i could put them up at 20-30g per cut but I'm doubtful I'd sell them to actual consumers at that price any faster than the 100g plus range they're at now.  The problem is there simply aren't enough gem slots in the gear people are acquiring to warrant them buying more than 1 or 2 gems a day provided they get an upgrade.  There are those players that re gem for different encounters or switch specs and re gem gear but i don't count that at more than 10 sales per week for one player.

Where the money from jewel crafting is to be made is in prospecting ore. If ore is under 75g a stack for obsidium and 65g a stack for elementium you can make profit by simply cutting the gems and vendoring them.  I'm not advocating this as the best way to make money in the least.  Your best bet, atleast on my server with enchanting mats at 50g per greater celestial and 11g per dust is to turn your green quality gems into green jewelry with your JC and have a friend DE them or find a kind enchanter you can tip to do it for you.  you'll get 1-3 dust or lesser celestial per green and when you're crafting those rings there's the chance for it to craft into a blue which can be sold on the AH in excess of 50g.  On my server the 325ilvl blue quality rings are selling consistently for 200-300 gold apiece. That's a huge profit for the minuscule investment of less than 2g for the setting and a single gem. if you look at your servers enchanting prices and ore prices, you can see what the max you'll pay for ore is while still making profit by just doing some simple napkin math.

Some things to watch out for while doing this method of making gold: the zephherite uncommon gems are almost worthless as they can't be used for crafting jewelry to DE.  They are, however used in the jewelcrafting daily, so you may want to save them and try to sell them for a decent profit on those days, otherwise the 9g for vendoring cut ones might be appealing.  The gems on my server vary quite a bit in their raw form as far as AH price goes.  they can drop down to 12-13g per in which case i'll continue to craft greens and DE them, or I can get the opportunity to sell a dozen of a single color on the AH for 30+ gold in raw form.  When the nightstone daily rolls around i can get 50-100g per single raw uncut nightstone if I'm lucky.