End Indentured Servitude Now!

Just reading up on the latest blue notes regarding Patch 5.2.

 I think it’ll be interesting to see how the “buy the farm” system works in the new Patch.  For those of you already working your farm, it may be a good time to start stockpiling your wares.  If you’re not working the farm yet, I highly suggest that you at least start the questline to get your farm started.

 I’m excited to see which factions you can get work orders from.  The money possibilities are here if there are issuing factions that also sell BoE items and rare pets.  Anyone on PTR seen this yet?  Maybe this is a good reason for me to start checking out the PTR.

 Another exciting addition is Battle-Stones dropping from PvP Pet Battles.  I’ve seen these going for as much as 10k on my server and I can’t wait to have more opportunities to pick these up and make some bank.  Also, the possibility of picking up a Lesser Charm of Good Fortune from pet battles is another opportunity for more gold.  So, train up your best team now to start racking those babies up.

 Unfortunately for those of you who use the “flee ‘til it’s rare” method of pet gathering, this will now inflict damage to your pet team.  I can’t say that I’m stoked about that, but it’s a minor inconvenience for my pet battle strategy and doesn’t impact my gold making at all.

 For those of you in the Transmog market- I gave this up because I got tired of the endless reposts and felt it was costing more to post than I was making- you’ll have a bigger market as now Two-Handers can be Transmog’d to each other, same for One-Handers and Staves to Polearms.

 This brings me to crafting.  Blacksmiths listen up!  There are some pretty cool looking weapons available for the Lightning Forge.  Ghost Iron Bars (for Lightning Steel Ingot) and Living Steel is a major component for almost everything.  So stock up now!  Oh by the way, some of these are BoE & ilvl 463+.  For you Engineers out there, there’s finally a legit item to sell.  Meet Pierre!  Pierre is a pet that resembles a pot-bellied stove and functions as a campfire.  Since he functions as a campfire, there’s reason to believe that he will give the campfire’s standard Spirit buff which will make him a high demand pet for casters.  The only uncertainty is whether he’ll be cageable since he’s currently BoP.  Lastly, for you Scribes in the audience, there’s another opportunity to increase your ever expanding purse of jingling coins with the new glyphs being introduced in this patch (too many to name here and now).

 If you’ve been playing on the PTR and have something to contribute regarding these new money-makers, I’d love to have your input.  Until then, I guess I’ll have to split my gameplay to get the inside scoop on 5.2.  Expect an edit/update when I have further info.

 When in doubt, C4…

Chasing Unicorns

If you set yourself a goal, what was your goal & at what point did you set it?

When I started out, I set my goal to hit the gold cap.  It seems, however, that I’ve hit a brick wall rather than thet gold cap.  That’s probably because I haven’t had the discipline to not spend the money I’m earning.

About every week to two weeks, I end up hitting up the auction house for any rare pets that I don’t already have.  I’m excusing this as a long term investment.  What I mean by that is that after I reach the pet achievements, I can resell these and (hopefully) make a profit on them- especially if they’re trained up to level 25.

With that, I’ll go ahead and address day 8’s question, no, I haven’t reached my goal yet and I am still working towards it.

My strategy at this point is to train my battle pets up to level 25 so that I can make the pet market viable again.  Pre-MoP, it was working well for me and when pets went account wide it crashed just as I expected.  The difficult part of the pet market now is grinding the extremely rare pets or at least finding them cheap enough on the AH to flip them.

In addition to that, I’m focusing on flipping high level items where I can make a few thousand gold at a time.  I figure it’s better to make a lot of money off as few auctions as possible rather than handling a ton of auctions for very little profit.

I think there is something to be said for selling in bulk, though.  It works for Sam’s Club and Costco, why wouldn’t it work for WoW?  I just choose not to make my money this way.  I think of myself more like Nordstrom’s than Wal-Mart.  I’d rather deal in low volume with high profits.

The main reason I work this way is because I am a heavy remote auction house user.  If I’m away from the game (watching TV at home, waiting for a table at a restaurant, waiting on my wife to get back from the restroom, waiting on another pointless business meeting to start, etc), I’m usually buying and flipping on the RAH.  Since the RAH is limited in the number of transactions you can conduct everyday and it’s tedious to repost enough auctions to reach the limit as it is, I’d rather do business my way.  This could also be part of the reason I’ve hit a wall.

So, my goal remains to get to the fabled gold-cap if one truly exists.  I may be just chasing a unicorn though.

20 Days of Gold Making: Day 1

When did you start gold making & what triggered it?

Well, you could say I kinda started gold making back in vanilla but that was on illegit private servers and their mechanics weren’t the same as the real thing. I went legit when the Wrath of the Lich King came out. Basically, my good friend, Jamo, held an intervention and said that I was destroying the core of the Earth and supporting Martian terrorists by playing on private servers and convinced me to go legit. I’m glad he did because legit WoW is so much more fun than those busted private servers.

Anyway, when I crossed over to the light, Jamo had a ton of money and I didn’t really have anything. I tried the mechanics I had learned in private servers and the Kobolds in Echo Ridge Mine laughed at me. I asked Jamo’s advice and he told me to concentrate on leveling and then do my dailies for money. That may have been decent advice for a casual player in WotLK, but I wasn’t happy with it.

Then, in end game PvP, I learned that there was a bigger need for gold than I thought in order to get higher level non-raid PvP gear. I think this was what really triggered my gold making craze. So much so that I basically abandoned anything not related to gold making, including PvP which was the main reason I started gold making.

At first, I just started out by reading anything I could related to gold making. Sites like Cold’s Gold Factory, Just My Two Copper, and Power Word: Gold became my CTRL+D sites. By the end of Cataclysm, I thought I had my feet under me well enough to start my own blog and when Mists of Pandaria released, Candlefly’s Gold Adventures opened its doors.

Unlike other gold making sites, Candlefly’s Gold Adventures is geared towards showing what works AS WELL AS what doesn’t work (for me at least). Unfortunately, I’ve been remiss in posting for the past few months because I’ve been pretty much out of ideas. I’d like to throw out a HUGE shout out to Nev from Auction House Addict for posting this meme and giving the gold making community something to write about again.

Ships Full of Gold Making Landfall!

Ok, maybe it's not ships full of gold, but there are huge opportunites to make money in this new patch and you should be excited about it!  From the new Brawler's Guild to Battle-Stones, there's a lot of money to be had.  Read on for more detaiils.

Power Leveling for Guilds

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jim’s reply to his reader at Power Word: Gold regarding Guild Banks for storage got me to thinking about power leveling guilds.  Now, let me start there are a couple of caveats to put this post into practice and I’ll cover them in just a bit.  But this may be a good way to get your guild leveled to at least level three and maybe further.  What I’m going to show you is how to get at least twice the amount of guild XP in the same amount of time.

 

Bid Wars

Not so long ago, in an Azeroth not far away…

It is a period of divided Pandaren.  Noob Kobolds, striking from their hidden smartphones, have staked their claim against the Gold Goblin Cartels. 

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This text is getting really small. 

Can you still read this?  If so, congratulations your eyes work.

Top Ten Reasons for an Alt

When I first started playing World of Warcraft I thought, "Man leveling one character is hard enough, I would never level another!"  But then as I got into endgame play, I found that having another character or multiple characters can make the game more fun, if only to break the monotony of always tanking or always healing.  So, I started an alt.  I'm really thankful to Blizzard though for providing the perk system which really helps with leveling.  If you're one of the nay-sayers who still doesn't have an alt or if you're a gold goblin looking to maximize your profits, read on past the jump to find out why having an alt is not just a good idea but a great idea!

Do you Day Trade?

Play the Auction House like a boss!

So, I was looking at my old desktop the other day and wondering what to do with it instead of just letting it sit and gather dust.  I’ve had it for more than ten years now and it just can’t keep up with modern games anymore.  And then the idea struck me!  I can use it to “day trade” on WoW!  Read on past the jump for details.

Don't Get Caught Doing This At Work!

Cold’s Gold Blogging Carnival:  Don’t Get Caught Doing This at Work!

Wazzup?  With the WoW mobile armory now free for all, many people may find themselves on the moral grey line of trading while at work.  The mobile armory can be a great tool.  Read on past the jump to find out why and how you should be using this gadget on your coffee break.

So Many Points, So Little Time

Sell em while you got em!

Blizzard recently announced that Valor and Conquest Points would be converted to Justice Points and Honor Points.  Since these points are capped at 4k, if you are above the cap, you should use your points in the next two weeks in order to avoid a reduced pay off.  Read on past the jump for details.

Perk Me Up

When starting out on World of Warcraft, regardless of your end goal, your first goal should be to level. There are a couple of perks WoW has built in to help you level but unless you have already leveled a character or know how to obtain these perks it can be challenging.  Read on past the jump to for easy ways to obtain these.

Step Right Up!

Step right up!  Darkmoon Faire is here and there is a lot for a Gold Goblin to profit from.  To profit, you’re gonna want tickets.  Read on past the jump to find out how to get the most tickets possible and other ways to profit from DMF.

Do you have the right Addons?

A List of Addons to help you on your way to WoW riches.

Here I have compiled my list of suggested addons to help you hoard your massive stash of gold.  The links to their Curse download pages are provided for your convenience.  I also have an Addon Pack you can download at Curse where you can get them all (Pokemon anyone?).  These are just the ones that I have found that I like through many trials and errors.

The Impending Pet Market Crash

The Impending Pet Market Crash

With the looming release of Mists of Pandaria, many of us have seen or even taken part in the profitable pet business.  It has been great to buy pets from vendors like Donni Anthania and flipping them on the opposite faction or neutral auction houses for ten times their vendor price.  But I’m afraid this may come to a screeching halt with the new patch.  Read on past the jump to find out why.

Four Easy Steps to Set Up a Profitable WoW Business

There are many examples of making gold in World of Warcraft based on real life examples.  The most common are just selling your wares that are profitable or buying low and selling high on the Auction House (aka Flipping).  Then there are some examples that display “out-of-the-box” thinking, like selling crafting kits by stockpiling and then advertising on your server’s forums.

The later idea got me thinking… I have an uncle (IRL) who makes a ton of money running a pawn shop.  People come to him for loans giving him stock as collateral and if they don’t pay he resells it.  People also just sell stuff to him because they are pretty well guaranteed that he’ll buy it.  So, what if someone set up an in-game pawn shop?  Read on past the jump to see how it works.

Let's make sweet, sweet profit together

A little bit about Candlefly’s Gold Adventures

Who am I?

Welcome, friend!  I’m Candlefly!  My user decided to create me for the Mists of Pandaria Launch.  He wanted to start fresh and put what he knows (or dosen’t know) to the test.  He had been playing World of Warcraft since the Burning Crusade expansion on private servers (Amateur!).  He finally went legit when Wrath of the Lich King came out and a friend convinced him that legit was better than private servers.  My user finally wised up!  He created some lame Blood Elf Paladin that he leveled to 80 during Wrath (Who could blame him?  Goblins weren’t playable then).  When Cata came out, my user’s friend quit because of Druid HoTs getting nerfed, he switched realms and factions and leveled another Paladin from scratch up to level 85.  He started a few alts and finally found that there is so much more to WoW than Paladins.