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!!!