Monday, September 30, 2013

October/November Gold Blogging Carnival Topic

Everyone is welcome to write a post for the blogging carnivals at Copper to Gold.  All of the previous carnival topics that were hosted at Cold's Gold Factory can still be found there. 

What If I Don't Have A Blog And I Want To Participate?


If you don't have your own site, you can still participate in the gold blogging carnivals. Sometimes a topic may tickle your fancy or you may have a unique spin on a blogging carnival topic that you would like to have read by others. Well, you are in luck. There are blogging sites that will post and host your content as a guest post. Just follow the normal blogging carnival rules that the others follow and get your post hosted and live prior to the carnival. Then, just submit the link to me (sonomad98@gmail.com) for inclusion in the upcoming gold blogging carnival.  You may also send me a direct message via twitter @selltacular as long as we follow each other.

Be sure to check out How To Get More From Blogging Carnival Participation.

The friendly sites willing to host your content are:
  1. Squidoo - Join up and make a lens on the topic and earn money too.

October 2013 Gold Blogging Carnival Topic

This month's topic was inspired by the recent merging of the servers Boulderfist and Bloodscalp.

With the recent merging of 2 PvP servers, in what Blizzard calls Virtual Realms, I've been pondering quite a bit as to how that type of change should be handled as far as the AH economy is concerned.  You'll be dealing with new competitors and more buyers as expected, but what is the optimal strategy for once again dominating or at least keeping your chunk of the market?  How would you prepare yourself if you're given the name of your companion realm ahead of time?




"If you knew in advance what realm would be merged with yours, what would you do to prepare and adapt to the changes to your AH economy?"

Monday, September 9, 2013

Patch Preparation - September Gold Blogging Carnival

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival - September 2013

Originally created by Cold of Cold's Gold Factory, his format for the carnival post will continue to be used in all future posts.  Just returning from a break?  Read Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival Announcement to find out why his carnival has found a new home.  I also did a short summary about becoming the new host for Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival.
 
Welcome to another 2013 edition of Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival.  These carnivals will continue to take place the 11th day of every month and will be hosted here at Copper to Gold.  All World of Warcraft bloggers are welcome to participate and feedback both here and on the original authors' sites is strongly encouraged.  So show some support and please leave some feedback in the comments section. These bloggers put a lot of time and hard work into these blogging carnival posts so please tell them what you think.
 

If you would like to be included in the next month's carnival, please review the guidelines for Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals and submit your live post link via email (sonomad98@gmail.com) before the 10th of the month. Read up on the benefits of participating in blogging carnivals at Cold's blog designed to help new bloggers, Blogging Vitals.  (Lots of tips for those of you starting out or interested in blogging.)  Articles for the CGF carnival are listed in the order they are received. Thank you to all the bloggers participating in this month's carnival!
 

Now I present to you this month's participants on the topic of:


"How do you prepare for changes in the game?  How does it affect you at patch time?"


Preparing for Patches - All Change! - By Nev of  Auction House Addict

Being Well Prepared for Patches - By Phat Lewts of Phat Lewts' Gold Blog

My Patch Preparation Rundown -  By Selltacular of Copper to Gold

How Patch Prep Affects Me Now - By Stede of Late Night With Stede

If you'd like to follow the participants via twitter, you can visit each of their twitter feeds by clicking on their names.

Thanks again to all of this month's participants.  And a special thanks to Stede of Late Night with Stede for suggesting this month's topic.  Be sure to check back later for next month's carnival topic and remember to look for next month's gold blogging carnival on the 11th.  If you have a topic idea, don't be afraid to send it in.  I might use your idea, which will get you proper credit as well.

See you next month with posts from the October topic, until then, keep on making that gold!!



If you enjoy the monthly carnivals, spread the word and help support the carnival as it continues to grow:

Saturday, September 7, 2013

My Patch Preparation Rundown

For this month's Gold Blogging Carnival, Stede of Late Night With Stede asks, "How do you prepare for changes in the game?  How does it affect you at patch time"


Reading the Patch Notes

The first thing I do for a new patch is read the patch notes in their entirety and then re read them while taking notes of my own.  Normally these notes are just taken mentally but I've vowed to write them down and share them from now on in order to (hopefully) avoid missing something.  I can't even begin to stress how important it is to read the patch notes.  Often times I'll find myself in trade chat, dungeons and raids, trying to explain changes to those who haven't taken the time to read the patch notes.  While I don't mind being helpful, it's impossible to help those who won't help themselves.


How I Take Notes

I categorize my notes in the same way that the official patch notes are categorized.  I start at each category and take a mental note of the change, then I look at how that change could affect me, and more recently I also look at how each change could affect my readers as far as gold making goes.

I start with the classes and look for any changes that will affect popular glyph, gem, and/or enchant choices.  I'm actually horrible with this, as I'm not SUPER familiar with all of the classes.  This is something I'm working to improve upon.

Second, I look at the profession notes.  For each profession, I review the new recipes and take note of the new recipes, materials and calculate new material requirements.  From these notes, I then determine whether or not demand for their materials will be affected.  I then act accordingly.  Stock more mats if needed or stock less than normal.  For me, it's all about having a feel for my server's economy.  In addition, for materials obtained by daily cool downs, I look at the requirements for those cool downs and decide when and how I will be either selling the materials or buying them up.

After that, it's all about catching changes to items and creatures.  This time around, the popularly farmed troggs in Deepholm are getting their drops nerfed, which may mean even less availability of Embersilk Cloth.  I didn't go out on a farming frenzy but I'm buying up some less than normal priced cloth to hopefully sell off for a higher price once I see the availability of it decrease.  If it doesn't, then no big deal, I should easily be able to break even at least.  As for changes to gear that can be purchased via valor, justice, conquest, or honor points, it pays to know when it gets extremely easier to get that gear.  And with the LFR and Flex content being released in stages, it's good to know that your "LFR only" affected customers may be focused on other alts until they get their new content.  What's this mean for me?  Well for certain, I won't be camping the AH after day one of the new patch!!!  Hmm... that's kind of falling into the next part of the question.


How Patch Preparation Affects Me

Preparing for an upcoming patch helps me know what to expect and develop a game plan for meeting customer demands as theirs begin to match or outweigh the supply.  If I do it correctly, or at least close to it, I'll see my rewards in terms of high return on initial investments and I'll especially yield significantly more profit in significantly less time.

Every Day 

Every day, I'll be shopping for all of my crafting materials and buying as long as I feel comfortable with the prices.  Ensuring that I keep doing this every day will help me keep track of availability and cost of all of my required materials.  It will also help me determine if I need to increase the cost of any of my end products that I sell.  I can also keep track of this via charts from The Undermine Journal, but I like my mental notes better :)


Day One - Tuesday

On the first day of this patch I will be doing my normal posting routine of gems and glyphs since these sales will be affected by the class changes and changes to items with effects that no longer benefit from haste.  From there I will log all of my crafting characters to farm their patterns and complete their cool downs.  I will also craft any new items learned as a result of this.  I will avoid posting any gear other than the new ilvl 476 pvp gear until the weekend.  After that, I'll do another round of posting those glyphs and gems  Oh... I might want to make sure all of my gold making related add-ons are up to date, which pretty much means updating TSM and all of its modules.

Day Two Through Four - Wednesday to Friday

If my competitors in the glyph, gem, and item enhancement markets are still wasting their time, fighting over sales, I won't even bother with those markets.  With ONE exception: New glyphs!!!!  I'll make a separate group in TSM just for the new glyphs and I'll use it until my competitors become more competitive in this market.  I'll be posting more of these than the older glyphs for sure.

I'll continue to do my daily cool downs, craft the new items and send them off to list on the AH.  With the normal SoO just being released, content isn't going to go down that fast.  Only 1 wing of Flex difficulty will be available and none of the LFR content will be released until day eight!!  This means (for my server, your mileage may vary) everyone will have time to gear up their alts with the points they've been stockpiling and they'll likely eat through my competition's 'cheap' supplies.  Depending on how things look, I may take the time to OVER CUT everyone by 100-300 gold, just to see what happens.

Days Five Through Seven - Saturday to Monday

For me, this means it's time to start selling those greens again and to attempt to sell what's left of my 458 pvp gear.  I'll continue on with posting glyphs, posting 1 extra for the new glyphs.  Gems and item enhancements may or may not be posted, dependent upon how the market is acting.  As stated in days two through four if the market looks right, I'll just OVER CUT everyone, just to see what happens.

Week Two Through Week Seven - 17 September to 21 October

In the following weeks, I'll be slightly ramping up my efforts to make some sales.  I'll continue to do cool downs and craft new items and restock any that have sold.  However, for the most part, I'll be lying in wait.  The real sales most likely will pick up on 22 October, when everyone will have all modes of SoO available to them.  This will be the first week that my LFR customers get their full experience and a chance at gear from EVERY boss on ALL of their toons.  And IMO, most of my sales go to LFR loot and new alts since most people don't have time to raid in a normal group 7 days a week.


My List

Check out my Patch 5.4 Preparation Post for detailed information on all of the profession changes and updates.  I wish you all the best with your upcoming sales in this new patch!!!

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

September Gold Blogging Carnival Topic

Thank you Cold for passing this carnival off to me.  It's an honor to host this project.  Thanks to all who have congratulated me on being the new host.

Everyone is welcome to write a post for the blogging carnivals at Copper to Gold.  All of the previous carnival topics that were hosted at Cold's Gold Factory can still be found there. 

What If I Don't Have A Blog And I Want To Participate?


If you don't have your own site, you can still participate in the gold blogging carnivals. Sometimes a topic may tickle your fancy or you may have a unique spin on a blogging carnival topic that you would like to have read by others. Well, you are in luck. There are blogging sites that will post and host your content as a guest post. Just follow the normal blogging carnival rules that the others follow and get your post hosted and live prior to the carnival. Then, just submit the link to me (sonomad98@gmail.com) for inclusion in the upcoming gold blogging carnival.

Be sure to check out How To Get More From Blogging Carnival Participation.

The friendly sites willing to host your content are:
  1. Squidoo - Join up and make a lens on the topic and earn money too.

September 2013 Gold Blogging Carnival Topic

This month's topic was suggested by Stede of Late Night With Stede  via a twitter response.

I'd like to ask all of the participants to please include any of their own 5.4 related links in their posts as well.  It's not required but would be very helpful to sum everything up for all of your readers.
Due to Patch 5.4 releasing the day before the normal live carnival date, I'll be launching this carnival tomorrow, on the 5th of September and will continue to update the carnival entries as submissions are received and added.  Follow me on twitter @Selltacular to receive all updates as they are published.




"How do you prepare for changes in the game?  How does it affect you at patch time"

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Patch 5.4 - Speculation, Preparation, Price Inflation

***Any further PTR changes will be noted in red as they pertain to gold making***


There are soooo many changes coming in Patch 5.4, The Siege of Orgrimmar!  I feel so overwhelmed just thinking about covering them all from a gold making perspective. Check out that link to the official 5.4 patch notes and feel free to follow my reference links as you follow along.


Flex Raiding

I'm hoping that along with the new raid content, flex raiding will increase the number of people picking up gear upgrades.  As of right now, flex raid will have its own lock out, separate from raid finder and normal/heroic modes.  To account for the increase in gear avaliability, my stockpile of gems, enchants, belt buckles, and shoulder inscriptions are stocked even more than they were for the release of patch 5.2!  This time, I also have the tailoring leg enchants to add to my arsenal.  I'm getting close to being able to obtain the leather working ones as well!  Despite all of my stockpiling, I believe that I still won't be able to keep up with the demand.  Which is fine by me, with that kind of market, it makes it really easy to inflate the prices.


Redesigned Arena System

With just a quick look at the patch notes, I can see that it would be much easier just to grab a friend or two and queue up for an arena match.  The necessity of having a team is one of the factors that drove me away from PvP.  Couple this change with the upcoming Connected Realms, and you might have a formula for increased PvP related sales.  My realm is pretty much dead when it comes to PvP.  When it comes to being able to spread the availability of gems, amongst a larger variety of cuts, combined with the increased AH activity brought to us by Connected Realms, I actually welcome this change.  I probably won't venture back into the realm of PvP, but you can bet I'll be keeping my eye on that market once again.  Should the opportunity for profit present itself again, in the name of PvP, I'll be quick to capitalize on it.


New Freaking Glyphs!!!!!

Currently 38 new glyphs are being added, I'll list them below by class to make it easier to read through than the patch notes.  All of these are technique type patterns that drop off of Pandaria creatures or off of powerful creatures on the Timeless Isle.  If your scribe isn't geared up or can't rely on a group for the Timeless Isle, I'd suggest getting some gear together to make the acquisition of the new glyphs a little easier for you.  Of course, this is assuming that the techniques are only visible to be looted by a scribe.  To top this off, I'd recommend that you go ahead and stockpile a little extra ink for these while you can.  New zones without resources normally leads to a slight dip in AH resource availability and a slight rise in their prices.  Expect to sell quite a few of these glyphs, especially if your competition has left the glyph market, or the game for that matter.


Death Knight

Major Glyphs
Minor Glyphs
Druid

Minor Glyphs
Hunter

Major Glyphs
Mage

Minor Glyphs
Monk

No new glyphs to learn

Paladin

Major Glyphs
Minor Glyphs
Priest

Minor Glyphs
Rogue

Minor Glyphs
Shaman

Major Glyphs
Minor Glyphs
Warlock

No new glyphs to learn.

Warrior

Major Glyphs
Minor Glyphs



Blacksmithing - More Cool Downs, Yay!!!

Plans: Balanced Trillium Ingot and Its Uses - This drops from any pandaria mob and teaches your blacksmith how to make a Balanced Trillium Ingot as well as one of the new recipes.  The Balanced Trillium Ingot is made using only one Trillium Bar OR you can use one Trillium Bar and one Spirit of War for Accelerated Balanced Trillium Ingot as often as you like, in order to learn the new recipes faster.  The new 476 PvP recipes (Crafted Malevolent Gladiator) will require Ghost Iron Bars to craft.  Top off your stockpiles of bars while (if) you still can.

12 Ghost Iron Bars - Bracers
15 Ghost Iron Bars - Belt, Gloves, Shoulders, Boots
20 Ghost Iron Bars - Helm, Chest, Legs, Shield

Yep, there are currently 3 476 PvP shields that can be created this time around.    The two intellect ones may rival the current 476 PvE Off Hand Items (created by Inscription) when it comes to sales.  Here's a link to the comparison of the intellect based items: 476 PvP vs 476 PvE


Cooking - Ummm, at Least I Have a Chef's Hat?

Nev of Auction House Addict did a couple of excellent posts, summarizing everything I can think of as far as cooking goes.  Read her 2 part post in Feeding the Raiders and Cooking for Raiders in 5.4.  I've never really focused on cooking other than leveling the profession.  When it comes to cooking, I go to Nev to see what she's written.


Enchanting - Fragments and Scaling

Sha Crystal Fragment - Obtain these from the newly crafted 496 PvP gear, or from the Justice Point gear that was previously available for Valor Points.  Take 3 of them and combine them to make a single Sha Crystal.  I wouldn't spend justice points just to get your hands on these fragments though, I'd stick with the 220 JP per Wrath epic gem.  This method of obtaining a Sha Crystal does NOT have a cooldown.  The least amount of mats to get one fragment will be 6 Bolts of Windwool Cloth (30 Windwool Cloth) which ends up being 90 Windwool Cloth to make 1 Sha Crystal as often as you'd like.  Currently I use 4 bolts (20 cloth) to make the pvp bracers or cloaks and  disenchant them into Ethereal Shards and then convert 5 of the shards (100 cloth) into a Sha Crystal.  With the new fragments being added, Sha Crystals will be a little cheaper to make.   Lots of one lining due to the 27 August change :( new PvP gear now only DE's into an Ethereal Shard.


Enchant Scaling - All enchants will scale down to level 1, regardless of the original intended level.  All enchants will scale up to their intended level only.  Meaning the Crusader Enchant will scale appropriately from level 1 to 60.  At level 61, the enchant will still work, but it will no longer get any powerful as you increase your character level.  I am unsure as to whether or not this will affect twink enchant markets as of yet, as I do not know how each enchant will stack up to others at certain levels.  Unless twink guides are updated to show the comparisons between the current BiS enchants and their counterparts, in each twink bracket, I don't see many people venturing off to buy a different enchant than what is recommended for them.

05 September Update ~ A thread on this topic was started in the forums at stormspire.net.  Sterling posted a pretty good preliminary list of enchants and there is some additional discussion on this topic, it's definitely worth reading!!


Engineering - Peculiar Additions

Jard's Peculiar Energy Source will be a new item that Engineers will be able to create using a daily cool down.

Daily Cooldown - 10 Ghost Iron Bars
Sky Golem - 30 Jard's Peculiar Energy Source and 30 Living Steel
Advanced Refrigeration Unit -  5 Jard's Peculiar Energy Source and 5 Living Steel
Pierre - 15 Jard's Peculiar Energy Source and 15 Living Steel
Rascal-Bot - 15 Jard's Peculiar Energy Source and 15 Living Steel

Sadly, both pets are BoP and neither can be caged and traded.  Perhaps this may be an opportunity to sell some engineering profession kits to those who are obsessive pet collectors.



Inscription - Techniques

In addition to all of the new glyphs listed above, there is also a technique for crafting a ilvl 476 trinket.

Technique: Crafted Malevolent Gladiator's Medallion of Tenacity - Likely drops from the more powerful creatures of the Timeless Isle and teaches you how to create the Crafted Malevolent Gladiator's Medallion of Tenacity which only takes 10 Ghost Iron Bars to craft.  This will make a great companion to the Ghost Iron Dragonling trinket for quickly boosting a new 90's ilvl.



Leatherworking - Hardened Magnificent Hide

Another new set of cool downs for another new set of materials!!!

Hardened Magnificent Hide - Learned from Pattern: Hardened Magnificent Hide and Its Uses .  The pattern drops from any pandaria mob.  Once you use the Pattern, you will learn a random recipe (either ilvl 476 PvP or ilvl 553 PvE).  The pattern also teaches you how to bypass the daily Hardened Magnificent Hide cool down with Accelerated Hardened Magnificent Hide.  You can use 2 Magnificent Hide and 1 Spirit of War, the new special item you get from disenchanting your SoO raid gear.  Hardened Magnificent Hide will be used for crafting the ilvl 553 crafted PvE gear.

The new ilvl 476 PvP gear will require Magnificent Hide to craft.

2 Magnificent Hide - Bracers, Belt, Boots, Shoulders, Gloves
3 Magnificent Hide - Helm, Chest, Pants



Tailoring - Celestial Cloth

Yay!!  Even more cool downs for another new set of materials!!!

Celestial Cloth - Learned from Pattern: Celestial Cloth and Its Uses .  The pattern drops from any pandaria mob.  Once you use the Pattern, you will learn a random recipe (either ilvl 476 PvP or ilvl 553 PvE).  The pattern also teaches you how to bypass the daily Celestial Cloth cool down with Accelerated Celestial Cloth.  You can use 10 Bolt of Windwool Cloth and 1 Spirit of War, the new special item you get from disenchanting your SoO raid gear.   Celestial Cloth will be used for crafting the ilvl 553 crafted PvE gear.

The new ilvl 476 PvP gear will require Bolt of Windwool Cloth to craft.

6 Bolt of Windwool Cloth - Bracers, Cloaks
7 Bolt of Windwool Cloth - Belt, Shoulders, Gloves, Boots
8 Bolt of Windwool Cloth - Helm, Chest, Pants



Summary 

This should post should serve as a pretty good run down of everything a gold maker needs to know for 5.4.  If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to provide your input in the comments section.  This should post should serve as a pretty good run down of everything a gold maker needs to know for 5.4 and will even get it's own page pretty soon.

***Any further PTR changes will be noted in red as they pertain to gold making***