Phase 3: Profit !

I recently wrote about stuckness. Bigjimm is stuck with nothing to do. My schedule changed, I play in the morning and early afternoon, and can’t raid with my guild. I even ran out of things to spend my gold on (I don’t want a Mammoth; I have a Chopper). So, I’m doing a few things: first, I stepped down as an officer and raider, and I left my guild. Second, I’m spending time trying to devise a new way to make gold in game (and, thereby, stay a little closer to P3P’s normal content). Finally, I’ve taken it upon myself to find a way to spend the wad of gold that I already have.

My method? I’m buying a few runs through raids from the #1 guild on my server.

See these guys and gals? This is Riot Act. Everyone wave:

Ooo, It's a lady! Hello lady caller!

I’m on a low population server (Anetheron-US). Being on a low pop server has both drawbacks and advantages, but a definite disadvantage is the caliber of raiding. In my experience, it’s hard to find a capable raid group period. I’ve heard there are servers where you can PUG endgame hardmode content. (Mal’Ganis-US? Anyone know if this is true?) On Anetheron, I can’t even PUG the Weekly consistently, and that is a serious bummer.

Riot Act is an aberration on my realm. I’m a good player; before I left, my guild was 9/12 in ICC 25. The folks of Riot Act are some of the best players in the world. They’re a Top-100 guild worldwide. (They seem to float above and below 100 on WoW Progress.) They’re currently 11/12 in ICC 25 Heroic. (The Lich King kill is immanent as well, I’m told.) They transferred to my server due to the low lag in instances, and they’re currently head and shoulders above any other guild there. And, because they’re so good, they sell runs. Me? I’m buying.

Since this is a gold blog, let’s account for what I’m buying. I’m buying:

-An Ulduar 25m hardmode run. This will get me an excellent mount, the Ironbound Protodrake. Cost: 45,000g

-An Algalon 25m kill. This will get me a title, and I get to keep the key that accesses Algalon. Cost: 5,000g.*

-A Yogg+0 25m kill. This will get me nothing, but I want to see the content, and to get the drake I’d have to get Yogg+1 anyway, so I might was well go all out. Cost: 5,000g.*

-Finally, I’m buying a Lich King kill. I think this will be in 25m normal, but I’m not sure. This will get me the Kingslayer title, as well as potentially some loot. We’re still negotiating whether or not I can get tier tokens, how much they cost each, etc. Cost:  At least 10,000g.

(*Riot Act only sells these achievements because I’m already in there, getting the drake. So they will not, for example, sell a Yogg+0 run for 5,000g unless you’re buying the rest of the run to get them in there.)

Total cost: at least 65,000g.

What else am I getting for my 65k? I’m getting to see some of the coolest content in the game. Ulduar has been my favorite expansion of WotLK. The most fun I’ve had this expansion was in my old 10m group, running Ulduar when it was current content. Now I’m going to be able to go back and finish the one raid I really want to finish, and I get the mount I covet the most in the process. (Alas, I would also pay a ton of gold for a Black Protodrake, but that’s dead and gone.)

Also, I get to see the Lich King die. I don’t think I’d be as interested in any other boss, but I’ve been playing the Blizzard games since Warcraft I. (I play on a Mac, so it’s not like I’ve had a lot of options.) I played through Warcraft III over and over, and so paying 10k now to watch that jerk go the way of the dodo is worth it. I’m excited to watch that sob go down!

Finally, with the exception of ICC, I get to keep all the loot. While Ulduar 25 is two tiers gone at this point, there still are a few interesting pieces that might drop. And, if you’ve had as bad luck as I have with trinkets, a valuable piece might actually drop. And I might get some ICC loot; as I said, we’re still ironing that out. So, that’s all good too.

I make gold in WoW for a few reasons, but the main reason is that it makes other things easier. Buying a run is a great example of this. I haven’t ever bought a run before, but I have high hopes. I’ll try to document it and see if I think it’s worth it or not, and give you all some feedback. This is all scheduled to happen Monday, 5/3/10, so I’ll let you know how it goes down.

I’m eager to know what everyone thinks. Let me in on your thoughts in the comments. As ever, thanks in advance for the feedback.

GL! /bow

A while ago I put up a post about soloing Stratholme. However, I made a mistake and said that the gear in Strath disenchanted into Small Radiant Shards. I was wrong (Strath= Large Glowing Shards)… but small radiant shards are worth farming too! And where do they drop? That’s right, you guessed it…

Scarlet Monastery!

Okay, so they drop other places too- notably Razorfen Downs. What is the allure of Small Radiant Shards? Like the previous Starter Cash article, the allure is the vanilla enchant that require these enchant mats, specifically Enchant Weapon: Fiery. These enchants are in constant demand, and generally go for at least 75g-ish each. And if you thought Strath was easy to farm at 80, you’ll love Scarlet Monastery. My advice is to aim for the Cathedral wing, but you might have to run the other wings first to get the Scarlet Key in order to unlock the door to the Cathedral. No matter which wing you are in, the mobs are level 28-36 elites, meaning that you can literally pull a whole wing at a time and then AOE them down, especially if you’re in plate. In fact, if you keep something like Retribution Aura or Thorns up you will be unable to keep the mobs from killing themselves. And, just as a bonus, you could get a tabard in the Armory wing!

The drawbacks? There are very few, but one is remoteness. This effects Alliance more than Horde. Horde can head to Undercity and run up; Alliance have to fly to the Western Plague Lands and then take a longer run through territory full of Horde. I’m sure that anyone at level 80 is familiar with this run because of various world events- Hallow’s End, etc. However, knowing about the run doesn’t make it any less annoying to do. The other drawback, particularly when compared to running Stratholme, is the lack of anything else that you get from the instance. In Strath you get Large Glowing Shards, Argent Dawn reputation and potentially the Baron’s horse. In Scarlet Monastery you get Small Radiant Shards, that tabard… and that’s about it. (And I’m much more interested in a shot at the Baron’s horse than I am another dumb tabard, but maybe that’s just me.)

So, if you want to make some easy money, go solo Scarlet Monastery! Remember, if you’re not an enchanter, group up with one to receive the ability to disenchant gear that drops as you’re in the instance. The toon doesn’t even have to be in the instance, just in the group. So group up, farm shards, and make some fast money!

Finally, a last note: Markco wrote a post on this topic a short while ago. I normally don’t like to write about what he’s written about, but I wanted to put this post on the site because of the confusion stemming from the previous Starter Cash post. Because of the great feedback on that post I was able to make that post accurate, and I also got enough information to write this one. P3P has the best readers around. Thanks everyone!

(And let this demonstrate that Zekta and I do read our comments. I, for one, really love feedback, and I read every comment that people make. I wrote this post entirely because of the comments in that Stratholme article. Sometimes it only takes one comment to validate the effort required for a post, so if you have something to say about something we put up here, please take the time to let us know!)

GL! /bow

OMFG! This. Is. Crazy!

http://www.wow.com/2010/04/26/cataclysm-raid-progression-refinements/

Thoughts? I am overwhelmed. Put ideas in the comments.

Finally, please read Zekta’s “Anniversary” post. It’s a good one.