Phase 3: Profit !

Bigjimm’s pre-3.3 post, and a few other odds and ends

Hey all,

First of all, thanks for the comments in my previous post. I’ve read them all. In fact, I’ve read them all multiple times. In fact, I was so excited to see my first post in print that I may or may not have clicked refresh obsessively for a few minutes after I saw it was up, and then I may or may not have forced myself to take a walk after telling myself to “just CHILL OUT about this stuff for a day!”

ANYWAY, let’s move on. At the behest of Sarainy’s comment in my previous post, let’s talk about the upcoming patch 3.3. The question was:

I’d be interested to hear your take on stockpiling for 3.3. It is something that more and more people appear to be doing, not just as we get closer to the patch, but in every patch there seems to be more stockpiling going on than the patch before. It would be interesting to hear your take on it, as well as your personal opinion on how worthwhile it is, and so on

Before beginning, I’d like to say that I don’t think 3.3 is coming with the next downtime. (11/24/09 on US realms.) It still feels too soon to me, and I don’t think Blizz would drop the last big content patch two days before a huge national U.S. holiday (Thanksgiving). My guess is that it happens in the first or second week of December, but I’ve been wrong before. Anway, two-part answer to the question, incoming!

(1) Regarding 3.3 specifically

Let me preface this by again saying that I’m good at making WoW gold, not great. I do not take the time to use spreadsheets, do Zekta-caliber analysis, or do much more than use auctioneer and look for what I personally consider “obvious” AH winners.*

[* “AH winners” meaning, specifically, items that I’m sure I can sell (a) for a profit (however modest), and (b) that I can do so quickly. My personal strategy involves turnover. But I digress…]

The only thing I’m stacking ahead of 3.3 specifically is saronite bars. With the upcoming change to transmute: titanium (it’s losing the 20 hr cooldown entirely), their value is sure to move upward, if only in the sort term. However, this isn’t a hard decision to make: on my server, I regularly win stacks of saronite bars for less than the vendor cost (20g-24.5g; vendors at 25g). So my “stocking” was really more just deciding not to vendor them, which isn’t much of a risk. Moving on to Hot and Cold for 3.3.

Hot: Items that I think will be hot in 3.3 fall into a few categories:

(i) Typical “everyone’s getting new gear” stuff: Leg armor, spellthread, epic gems (cut or not), belt buckles, and enchant scrolls.

(ii) Typical “ZOMG there’s a NEW RAID!111!!!” stuff: buff food and feasts, flasks, runic health and mana pots, and other niche markets, such as ammunition and potions with specific application, ie: armor or speed pots.

(iii) The raw mats for all the above: I feel like I should just write Frost Lotus here and be done with it… wait, what’s that? It’s my post and I can do that?! Done and done!

Many readers will probably have figured out some or all of the above; it’s not 3.3 specific advice so much as it’s general patch-time awareness.

Also, after looking over the patch notes, a few profs will see little or no change from the patch. I personally don’t think that Inscription will see much change because there is little in the way of new glyphs or talent changes in the patch. (That’s right inscribers, you’ll just have to suck it up and continue making tons of gold without a 3.3 boost. QQ!) The other looser I see is Engineering, but that never makes money anyway.

Cold: Items that I’m selling now because I’m sure they’re going to tank in 3.3 include Titanium Bars (due to the alchemy change), crusader orbs (duh), and artic fur (because it will be vendor-sold in 3.3). Sell. Sell them all, right now. And then run away from these markets unless you really understand them on your server.

Conclusion: My personal opinion is that 3.3 isn’t going to be as big a money maker as 3.0 and 3.1 were. In fact, I don’t think it will be close (especially not if you were an inscriber early on. Good golly! Those guys made a killing.) For me, 3.3 is more about avoiding losses than it is about making big money. Get out of the “Cold” items above, sell the tankards you have left over, and keep your regular businesses moving along.

(2) Regarding pre-patch stockpiling generally

Since this is a long post already, I’ll try to keep my answer short. I, personally, don’t think there’s anything wrong with stockpiling pre-patch. On the macro scale it keeps prices steady because it evens out supply and demand. Honestly, I don’t have strong feelings about stocking, other than I think it’s something it can be profitable, and I do in moderation.

The more interesting question to me is how does it effect the individual AH type. In my experience, how much to stockpile depends on the size or the server/speed of the AH. On large servers, the population will make stockpiling more profitable for a number of reasons, but mainly because the volume of players will push demand higher much higher, much faster.

However, on lower pop servers such as mine, I don’t recommend stocking up as aggressively. I actually use pre-patch as a time to make money off of other players who are stocking up- ie: I’ve been making a killing on fish and gem markets because people are starting to anticipate 3.3. Weird, right? Anyway, I try not to outthink this sort of thing too much, but in my experience, slower AHes punish a mistake in stocking very hard, so be careful.

Okay, that’s it: my 3.3 wall of text. I’m going to talk about the other comments from my previous post in the future. Most of them deserve answers, but I wanted to get the 3.3 post out as quickly as possible.

Finally, because I wrote such a long post, I thought a little bonus was appropriate for anyone who actually got through the whole thing. Here’s my pro-tip of the post: one little item that I think has potential for profit in the near future is Snapper Extreme. Why? Well, there is a tremendous lack of hit on all tanking gear currently, and I don’t see most tanks trading in their T9 gear for at least a month into 3.3. More and more tanks are turning to snapper instead of other foods as a method to increase threat. Consider checking out the market on your server. (And, if you do, tell me if I’m right or not. I haven’t actually done it on my server yet!)

GL! /bow

Gold Guide?

Gold Guides

Personally I don’t hate gold guide…

To me a person that:

Slacking < Begging < Buy Gold < Gold Guide < Learn How to make gold free online < Discover how to make gold

The reason Buy Gold is lower than buying gold guide, is that at least you try to learn and be a capable person.

However that depends on the gold guide is worthy or not.
In Wow, there are already enough “I rather grind” people around. And I would said, We nearly covered every single gold making method out there. With common and market sense, you can make your life easy at wow.

1. If you had the incentive to pay $20 for learning from a gold guide, I would suggest you look around for free advices
2. If you just want to earn gold fast, go buy gold
3. If you want to buy a book that promise that’ll lead you to success, but you can’t proved it otherwise, since you’ll never had time to read it. Buy Gold guide (Or any other book that for “Personal Improvement”)

It is not rocket science on making gold in Wow, if you care enough, you can learn a lot from the AH. Most of the people just don’t bother (The big Gap on the Buy Gold | Gold Guide/Learn)

Start trading today and you’ll be fine,
forget paying $ for gold guide. Not because they are evil, it’s just not necessary.

The Fight

I don’t have much feeling with the fight, tbh, I don’t give a damn. It’s like a pushy salesman pissed a target, and he posted the conversation online, Simply as that.

The event Tobold mentioned may be shady, but I don’t upset with the “social engineering” thing too much. I wouldn’t say Markco is not greedy, but he’s doing something every salesman and telemarketing will do.

Is it all that matter when it get involved with gold guide thing or the “evil gold buying” related thing? Sounds like an overreacting to a taboo to me

Background
While I am not a JMTC Dweller, I do hang out on the JMTC IRC hosted by Carbon.
These people are amazing. And I thanks Markco for laying down the foundation block by providing the resources. (No matter if it’s investment for his gold guide)
The forum is mostly run by admin, which is voluntary by the dwellers.

Don’t judge the community by Markco and the blog, they are awesome people there.

On a side note, I really feel upset when Forum filled with AD and the Premium Member subscription needed for searching, google-search blocking and as an asset aside for his gold guide.
I know there are spending on hosting, but blocking the search is too much, the contents are not from you, Markco

Be warned, Greedy will be your undoing Markco

Thanks to advertisement among the blogosphere, we finally got a guest blogger here!

I started looking for guest poster / co-author from the very first day. This was a small project of mine from the start. I know I am not as enthusiastic as Seth in many aspects, That’s why I always posted in a relaxed schedule. However, A more frequent update is much better (Compare to gevlon’s daily updates which start our days)

I used envy that BRK got TJ, and Larisa got Elnia. And it’s always better that we can have more voice on P3P.

If you want your post posted here too, don’t worry, the gate is not closed yet.
We would always welcome more contributors to post here on Phase 3: Profit.

No more delay, Welcome BigJimm *clap hands*

Hi all,

Zekta is taking a little break, and so he’s put out the call for an assistant. I was lucky enough to strike him as competent, and so now I’ll post here occasionally.

In real life, I’m an American. I’m a college graduate. I’m actually a law school graduate too (and to anyone considering law school, I say DON’T DO IT!). My likes: WoW, Southeast Asian martial arts, excellent punctuation, and long walks on the beach. My dislikes: PuGs, slow auction houses, and split infinitives. I am, in sum, a complete nerd stereotype, in the flesh. But enough about me, let’s talk about my toons!

I am a level 80 endgame warrior tank. I’m a gnome on Anetheron-US, a slow PvP realm. I have good gear, and raid with a regular 10-man group in my pseudo-casual/hardcore guild (we clear regular raids but not hardmodes, making us thoroughly middle-of-the-pack). My favorite PvP is the AH, and I usually sit at around 10k gold- not great but good enough to own a chopper, buy BoE gear, and the occasional pet (for which I have a weakness). I have other toons too, but the warrior is the Chosen One, my main, my first and favorite toon.

So, my first post is a bit of an inquiry more than a proper content post: what do you, dear readers, want to hear about? Zekta is a man of reason, and I am a man of… well… somewhat less reason and maybe a little too much impulse. I like tanking, I understand the gem market on my server, and have too many opinions generally.

I first thought I would start with a simple post, ie: “Netherweave is drying up because everyone in the Outland is flying” or “Enchanting mats are going to lose value because of abyssal shatter.” However, Zekta said, essentially, that those were bad ideas for posts for two reasons: (1) Everyone knows this information, and (2) I should work a little harder for a post than just posting the stuff everyone knows.

(He didn’t actually say that verbatim- he was much nicer. However, I think his assessment was accurate- I mean, you all know that netherweave cloth is going to skyrocket, right? That’s not much of a post.)

And so, after this brief introduction, I ask a second time: what would you like to read? Perhaps a series on making money after starting on a new server? Or a mailbag-style question and answer series? Maybe a running diary of me tanking a hardmode (sure to be profane, fyi)?

Tell me what you want, and if I can, I’ll write about it. Put the answers in the comments- I promise I’ll read them, at least the timely ones.

Warning, Incorrect Content:
Thanks to Luj to point out my calculation error,
more detail in the comments…
Sorry Folks

Warning, Geek post :

We had a little talk on the Titanium Ore Prospecting on JMTC’s IRC channel…

I had come up with the calculation below
In wowhead, an epic gem drop rate on Titanium Ore Prospecting is 4-5%
Some conclude the chance of an epic gem drop is 4.5*6 (6 of epic gem) = 27%

Although amount of the equation agree, the calculation is wrong. You can’t apply this logic to other calculation. I’ll post the correct one here.

Expectation of a Ore Prospecting:
let P = a certain Epic Gem Drop
1-P = a certain Epic Gem didn’t drop

therefore
A prospect without a Epic Gem = (1-p)^6 = 0.758
A prospect without at least one Epic Gem = 0.2413 (3% left?)

Expectation of a prospect = 1 x (Chance of 1 gem Drop) + 2 x (Chance of 2 gems Drop) …. + 6 x (Chance of 6 gems Drop)

=

(Double Check the equation)

Correct me if I am wrong

Why we tolerance Slacking Healer and Tank (SH&T)?
or why we had Dps requirement, but not for the SH&T?

Imbalance

We all know about the tank and healer shortage

Let’s consider daily heroic. For a 5-man group, we need exactly 1 tank, 1 healer and 3 dpser. We need exactly 20% tank, 20% tank and 60% dpser that is in a 100 people group, 20 pugs will be form.

Take an example of a little imbalance: we had only 15% tank and 15% healer (70% dpser left of course). In a 100 people group, only 15 pugs can be formed. 75% efficiency. 25 Dpser will always be left off without group every day.

The Dpser (Not only the 25% left over) will always seek to lure the healer and tank to secure his place in a heroic. Better performance, Social connections (Friendship/Guild mates), Gold Compensation (Gevlon’s suggestion). No matter what they do, the dpser need to race for these minority group.

Example

On a 10 people server with: 1 Tank, 1Healer, and 8 dpser. We are pretty sure 5 people will be left off with no group every day. If the 8 dpser had the same performance, there no favor by picking one over the others.

Let’s take the Gold Compensation for simplicity.
Say dpser A is willing to offer 10g for a heroic run. T&H will take him instead of the other 8.
Player A will happier and T&H will split the 5 gold per run. Sounds not much, Uh?

Since Player A offer 10g, he will not be in the 5/8 loser group. Other dpser will offer a counter offer for their place as well. So the amount of gold offered will keep rising. Until 5 people drops out and rather have the gold in their pocket than having the heroic run. Consider the willingness to be raid ready, I would say that’s 50g+ per dpser.

The final price will be determined by two factors. 1. Willingness of running a heroic (Max Price they’ll offer for a run). 2. How imbalance it is in the Server. (How many drops out we need).

Generalization and Summary

Of course, Gold is not the only possible offer (it seldom is, sadly). Healer and Tank are offered friendship and other social connection. Lowered requirement and level of entry is also a common offer. This is where the SH&T feast on.

As long as the role imbalance exists, these SH&T will be around.

P.s 1. Idea from Robert H Frank’s The Economic Naturalist

P.s 2. Will cross server LFG ease the problem: Yes and No, Crossserver LFG will ease the imbalance in certain server, but the overall imbalance of H&T vs Dpser still exist.

P.s 3.This is a short post that I can conjure up between the death-grip and plague strike of the deadline knight. Gold Pug topics are still on the way.

Yes, I am still in the debugging (RL Work) tar pit.
Aka this post : Voice From Tar Pit

I did take my time to read blogs when I can spare sometime for breathing.

Post Review

The Big Argument this week, ofc is Gevlon’s post on QA2 vs Auctioneer post. The original posts are quite long, But I’ll summary the arguments a bit.

QA2 > Auctioneer:
Posting Speed
Fast Respond (Only consider glyph listed)

Auctioneer > QA2:
Statistical data as reference. +- 25% pricing range.

I wouldn’t comment on Posting Speed, QA2 win single handed.
The main different on QA2 vs Auctioneer other than that is the price reference. QA2 only consider the listed product price, but Auctioneer takes into account for historical data.

I would say the only different between two addon is that the reference pricing method is different. (QA2 can also set on a small fallback, so gevlon’s competitor invite argument just fail)

My comment would be, QA2 had a faster respond to situation, may fall prey to random glyph seller(Gevlon’s point), QA2 cannot deal with Outliners. QA2 need more care than Auctioneer.

While the respond time (or feedback loop) for Auctioneer is both bliss and curse. The price changes is so slow that it takes a week or two to adapt the market, while in hot market (or in a semi-camper game) it fails.

I would agree on debussy’s on his commet :

The main reason Gevlon’s post struck me the wrong way is not that he thinks Auctioneer is superior, but that he referred to people who use QA as ‘n00bz’ and ‘drones’.

I use both QA2 (For posting) and Auctioneer (For marketing data for reference).

Original posts

Gevlon’s post

Debussy’s reply

Post Spotlight

Gold Farmer and Inflation Myth

Debussy  is one of the brilliant guy I met at JMTC IRC

Here is a perfect example on his work
http://latinumbar.blogspot.com/2009/11/gold-farmers-and-botters-are-necessary.html

A point I’d like to point out (And debussy had already point out): The daily reward and other static income to grinder, is the cause of the inflation. I believe Blizzard Dev increase the daily reward for player who can grind for the increased price, while that only reinforce the inflation.

Blame Daily Rewards, not Gold Farmer.

Psychology Analysis on Goblins

While I am a Software Engineer (Computer Science Degree), I can hardly said anything on social science. (Oops, Isn’t that economic is also social science?)

Green Guts had a new perspective on looking at goblins.
http://green-guts.blogspot.com/2009/11/goblins-who-and-why-part-1.html
I can’t say for validation of the argument, since I know nothing about Psychology myself (but always interested to). This definitely worth your time.

Thought @ Tar Pit

I remember an old joke of mine, when I was Year 2. I guess only programming geeks would understand this… It’s what I feel in the tar pit now

void Work(life);