Phase 3: Profit !

MMO-Champion mentioned that changes are coming on the 4.1 PTR that will significant change the Obsidian Shuffle.  Alright, what exactly does this mean?  For those of us who have been taking advantage of high vendor prices for the uncommon gems from Obsidian, it means that the easy 9G per gem is going away.  Most place on the blogosphere seems to be taking the stance that the sky is falling.  However, I am not too sure just yet.  It will have a dramatic change on the Game of to the Auction House.  But there should still be profit, just maybe somewhere else.  Let’s take a quick look on the impacts.

Jewelcrafting – Yikes, this doesn’t look helpful

Mining – Yikes, the floor price is dropping

Engineering – Well, maybe we can find something

Blacksmithing – This has got to be good, right.

Jewelcrafters:  Form a Union Now…

This is something that was predicted a long time ago, but it was for a long time ago.  Just as Cataclysm launched many were saying that the uncommon gem prices strangely high.  I remember an episode of Call to Auction where they discussed it quite a bit.  At the time, I thought it would change in a hot fix like the Maelstrom Crystal changed that caught my Alchemy/Enchanter with worthless non-DE-able stones.  Yet, the change never came.  Now, I would like to see this a good news.  We have been looking forward to the introduction of Epic Gems.  This might be the right time for that.  Blizzard would need to nerf the uncommons gem prices if they were introducing Epic to avoid a mad rush to Jewelcrafting.  I think that Jewelcrafting will still be profitable, but the shuffle may end up more similar to the Wrath Saronite version.  It’s more work, but more goods for the Auction House as well.  I’ll reserve judgment until the change goes live, but we need to form a Union now.  I don’t want to picket the AH, but there has to be something we can do as a group.

This may induce a side effect on the Herb, Alchemy and Inscription market as Herbs are purchased to Transmute Uncommon Gems into Rare versions.  This will likely not to be too significant as the demand for Rare Gems will likely be fairly steady.

Mining:  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…

I can’t think of a way to phrase this nicely.  Miners just got a big face full of coal dust.  Try not to get Black Lung and die.  The floor price for Ore is taking a huge hit.  Farming gold per hour will take a beating.  It is not likely to be the 92% hit that the Uncommon Gem price is taking, but it will be significant.  I guess this is one way of combatting bots.  At least, there may be some demand from Engineering and Blacksmithing.  It is likely to make Smelting a viable option as well.  It’s not all bad news, but it’s hard to say that there is a silver lining.

Engineering:  Woot!?!

This is a great thing for Engineering.  I don’t know about you, but I have been disappointed with my 525 Engineer.  I just haven’t been able to find any real profits in with the Cataclysm Engineering items.  I like the utility of my Killshades and cogwheels, but well…. it’s been tough.  Now, I need to plan and find any recipes that I don’t have yet.  I am hopeful that my Engineer Alt can finally make it into the gold making rotation.

Blacksmithing:  Woot!!!!!!!

You mean something besides buckles might generate a profit.  How can this not be good?  Mats will be down, but there is more.  The recipes require Elementium Bar which should be cheaper as well.  High level Blacksmithing will be cheaper than ever.  Combine this with the Call to Arm, Dungeon Finder change and we could see an increase in demand for plate tanking gear.  Argh, It looks like I will be spending my time getting another alt to 84.

Are you happy now?

Well, you should be.  The marketing is shifting.  This can lead to a tremendous opportunity for many of us.  I hope to be well into the black and I wish you amazing success as well.

Happy Selling!

Once, Dear Reader, a long time ago, Seth left the WoW blogosphere. That caused The Great Zekta to write an entire post dedicated to the thought that everything that has a beginning has an end.

With that in mind, it is with true sadness I admit that my time blogging is probably coming to a close. Yes, Dear Reader, the end is nigh. I have a few days left in the US of A, and all of my time is devoted to preparing for anything and everything. Very little time is devoted to playing WoW. In truth, I don’t really know what to do in game- I’ve raided, been a main tank for a top-3 server guild (granted, it was a lousy server), made and spent fortunes, battled relentlessly with Netherweave Bags, and recently have become enamored of the solo aspects of WoW. I have most of the rare items that Archaeology currently has to offer, I’ve ground out the Tol Barad mounts and pet, I don’t care about any rep or gear, and I’ve thoroughly explored everything new that came with Cataclysm. *cough* Except Vashj’ir- I guess that will just have to wait.

(Note: Vasj’ir is a gorgeous zone. It’s great. I just didn’t get though it on a toon because I didn’t want to. I’m halfway on a bunch of toons, but I’m okay with that. Don’t skip the zone because I did.)

I’d like to post a few final thoughts before I set sail for the other side of the world.

The Good

Generally, P3P has been great for me, as has CTA. And, come to think of it, so too has WoW generally. I don’t have many in-game regrets.

My favorite thing about the game was always the character. I got lucky and got it right on my first character, the gnome tank that is and was Bigjimm.

But besides Jimm? Well, getting feedback from the community has always been a very rewarding thing for me. I loved being a part of WoW Insider’s Resource Guide. And being mentioned in The Daily Quest recently was a very happy feather in my cap. Truthfully though, the thing I’ve liked the most was always the comments. Dear Reader, I love reading what you have to say about what we write here on P3P.

My favorite post(s) here will always be the two posts I wrote about writing, asking if Elitist Jerks Is Right. I can not stress how much I tried to make those posts applicable to people who wanted to know about writing, and how much they meant to me as the author.

Other fun posts? There are really too many. I will say this- please, Dear Reader, take the time to go back through the P3P archives and look at what I’ve posted. I think that most of what I’ve written is worth re-reading, even though it’s outdated. Yes, the content isn’t current, but I like to think that the way the posts are written, the way they flow, the pictures and comments, and the general approach make most of my posts something that you will enjoy reading in the future.

Other favorites? There are a few- the NBA prediction column (and, btw, I was right about everything in it- HA!), the Pulling Back The Curtain column, and the inclusion of both the Idiot’s Guide and Starter Cash memes as ways to write about WoW. I am happy about all of that. I think that they worked really well, and I don’t think that any other WoW blogger was doing columns of that fashion.

The most rewarding? Probably finally getting the Rusted Protodrake after much toil and trauma.

The most fortuitous? Certainly my first post about Markco. Through sheer luck, I caught him at a moment when he was questioning his time in WoW. My post, apparently, encouraged him to redouble his efforts and to continue blogging. It also enabled me to become a host of Call To Auction, get to know both Markco and Euripides, along with a few other WoW celebrities- Mike Schramm, Turpster, and others. Being a minor WoW celebrity has been lots of fun, and it wouldn’t have happened without that post.

The best experience? Something I’ve never talked about- early in the days of Ulduar, my guild cleared through Hodir 10m and got every achievement. It was one of those magical WoW nights when we broke through all our previous boundaries and everything came together for a great raiding experience.

Finally, The Best? Well, Dear Reader, that should be obvious. The best thing I did was get married to Ms. Jimm. What more could a person ask for?

The Bad

There has been a lot of bad, and I haven’t posted about it very much here. I will say that, personally, WoW was important to me when my life was at a low point. After Law School, I couldn’t find a job; I had, for the first time ever, really failed. I threw myself into WoW as a distraction. And I drank a lot. I mean, A LOT. I won’t belabor the point, but I will say that I consumed too much Haalani Whiskey and let things get hopeless for a while.

The other Bad? The only other thing that really gets me down is watching the blogging cohort that I know and love slowly die off, one by one. It a sad thing to watch unfold over time. When I started blogging there was a whole crop of bloggers that have gone the way of the Dodo- BRK, Veneretio, Alachia, Kadomi, Seth, and, amazingly, even Markco. I’ve watched other bloggers die the slow death of inactivity and lack of desire, and it’s a sad thing to see the people you admire pack it in. When I joined P3P, gold blogging was really just beginning to gain momentum. Now it is going strong- Euripides writes for WoW Insider (and he actually gets paid real money for it!), there is a whole new group of gold bloggers updating every day, and there’s even another gold podcast that’s churning out good content. With all the blogs, the Consortium, The Undermine Journal, the JMTC community, and even the endlessly entertaining Gevlon, the WoW blogosphere seems to be in good hands.

But the old guard? The old guard is gone. And that is a funny thing, because what I consider to be the “old guard” wasn’t, strictly, the first group of bloggers and podcasters- it was a group of folks that started blogging and podcasting as recently as TBC. That, in WoW terms, isn’t that old. But they’ve all moved on to things that are, hopefully, both bigger and better. And I’m sad that I can’t go to tankingtips to read Veneretio’s brilliance, or load up wowcast and hear Alachia keep a solo show interesting for hours (a very difficult task, btw).

The final straw, for me? It was Larisa recently calling it quits. After 700 posts, she’s done. Her retirement represents a true loss to the WoW community. She’s the smarter of the two of us gnomes, and I’ll take this opportunity to quietly follow her lead.

The Balut

I am excited about my upcoming move to the Philippines. I worked there for a short time a few years ago, and I loved it. I’m looking forward to starting a new part of my life there.

When I posted about the move, a few comments to that post mentioned Balut. Balut, if you’re not aware Dear Reader, is a very specific piece of Filipino cuisine. It is a partially-mature, hardboiled, duck egg. It’s the richest, weirdest, and oddest dish I can think of. It’s part hardboiled egg, part baby duck. It’s something that most westerners think is revolting. However, I’ve had balut (more than once), and I like it. I think that when you visit a new place, you should suck it up and try something that matters to the people and place you’re visiting. So, to all the Pinoys out there, I say this: Thank you for your delicious Balut! I’m looking forward to having more in the near future. And if you come to the US sometime soon, I think you should try a Cadbury Creme Egg- something similarly regional, odd, and potentially rewarding/disgusting. Like Ron Burgundy said, “when in Rome…”

One final thanks to all the people and friends I’ve come across- Arkus (aka: Doodle), Elizaveta, Viknaszuu, Andregis, Tyraana, Darkangel, Jen and Dave, Mike the Deathknight, Mike’s dumb (but very fun) Hunter younger brother, Cookie, Bryn the woman who sounded like that guy from family guy, the scary Russian guild master, and even the entire guild that transferred off of my server for greener pastures without telling me (and then fell apart- HA!). Also, thanks to all the AIE guildies who’ve helped out- Tyberiuss, Sorvun, Ravanna (the uber-tank), Eade (the nicest guy in WoW), Maui, Southpaw (who did the best DPS I’ve ever seen), and everyone else I’m forgetting. It has been a great time for me, and I thank you all sincerely.

Finally, I give huge thanks to Zekta. He keeps letting me write, pays the bills, sends me e-mails and generally is kick-ass awesome. Zekta, buddy, soon I’ll be much closer to Hong Kong, and maybe we’ll finally get to share that bowl of noodles I’ve been dreaming of for so many months.

I guess that the best way I can close this is to evoke the great writer Robert F. Jones. In a 1977 Sports Illustrated editorial he mused about his time spent in Cuba at the Hemmingway museum. I’ll paraphrase him in answer to the question, “Jimm, if you could do it all over again- the blogging, the playing, the countless hours spent in front of the computer… would you?”

Dear Reader, I would. “I would go back.”

GL! /bow

-Jimm

This is a cross mmog post, will be posted on both blog of mine,
http://phase3profit.net (WoW) and http://warpto.me/i-trader (EvE Online)

(I have less topic on Wow to share recently, this is a ice-breaker post, since Gevlon had hit a topic I had deep thoughts about…)

Gevlon at http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2011/03/intra-player-microtransaction.html
and
Rohan at http://blessingofkings.blogspot.com/2011/03/trading-time-for-money.html
talked about Intra-playerbase microtransaction.

While both blogger are from Azeroth (Wolrd of Warcraft), like any new capsuleer (I assume some of them are reading this post as well) have little knowledge about what happened in the New Eden (EvE online)

here is a little background:

Background

EvE online’s developer CCP, decided to include Intra-playerbase microtransaction in EvE online.
PLEX – Pilot License Extension, an in game item, which can be bought from CCP
is effectively an item when “consumed” add to the account’s 1 month subscription.

CCP will make 15% markup for buying the the tradeable version of PLEX (Compare to directly subscript a month player’s own account)

This had been running for years (As far as I can tell, it’s back from 2009)
Since it’s fully supported by CCP, the transaction is totally secure, and not shady business running.
This proved to be a good example for the discussion, since we have  tons of data (Official from CCP)

But there may be some major differences in two games.

Difference

1. Eve is hard and harsh. Imagine when you die, all your gears are lost, and you better have another set of gears (Ship) ready, or the station trader will be happy to rip you off, unless you are willing to wait a day or two.

2. Isk (Gold) matters. In Wow, Extra gold do not give you much use. Other than Mekgineer’s Chopper and Grand Ice Mammoth.
In Eve, every thing is Isk, if you want a decent ship, you need Isk. If you want to achieve anything big, you need even more. It’s also matters that, it takes Isk to make Isk. Evem if you grinding like mining, you need at least some capital to start mining effectively. Most of the player would complain not enough Isk(Gold), since when you have more, you want to achieve more.

Failing manage your wallet also means fail the game at all.

My observation

1. Main source of PLEX is not from new/lowbie player, but rather old player who want to have the short cut or boost to his activities. Since “High-end” activities take much more Isk (2 PLEX for a freight for instance) to maintain, while one PLEX can feed a new player’s ship (42 x T1 Cruisers) for a month or two.

2. The transacted money is hardly for social value at all. While there are some gold sink as well (Faction ships), there are much more place that a player can spend in EvE. An showing off a really rare ship is more likely to attract suicide gank (attacks) rather then Envy sights.

3. Efficient or Hardworking Isk-maker live their game for “free” on the exchanging “service” for the game time. The market itself is self-balanced.

4. Bot and Black market Isk (Gold) Seller still exists, even if it did reduced a lot. Since some player just want RL cash, instead of game time alone.

Disclaimer: I never buy gold in Wow, but did buy two Plex in Eve for starting budget for my trader. In both case, it’s valid for the EULA on both game.