The Noob's Thorough Guide to Making Easy Gold (Step by Step)

[Upgrayedd]

AND, if you choose to use those trugold and flasks MUCH more efficiently, avoiding the undercutters and farming yourself... there are no other expenses OTHER than the time it costs to farm the mats... Thus HUGE profits...

It's called opportunity cost. Look it up.

[TClermont]

I mostly lurk here but I feel like chiming in because I try explaining this flaw in logic you have to my roommate all the time. Farmed mats aren't "free", in fact they're more expensive than just buying them off the AH and depositing them in your bank. You'd think someone that modeled the entitle OP after an economics class would understand opportunity cost, but it wasn't mentioned so I'll explain.

Any good AH goblin can make way more per hour standing in a major city working the AH or advertising in trade than he/she would farming mats. Your crutch here is that you don't actually "farm" the mats, you let your bot do it for you. Because you didn't have to work for those mats, in your mind they're free.... but they aren't. Just because you didn't pay for those mats doesn't mean they don't have a value. If we assign Elementium Ore a value of 30g/stack let's say... then a stack of Elementium Ore is worth 30g regardless of whether you actually bought it or farmed it, as you could have just sold it back for 30g rather than using it to make something more expensive. All mats, no matter how they were earned, need to be included when calculating profit/loss .

That being said, I don't see anything wrong with the method listed and I think "Bartering" is going to be a huge recruiting tool for guilds as people flock to take advantage of the discount while not everyone has access to it. The downside is, much like the new enchants/jc patterns in 4.06, the selling price of the hogs/vials will drop quickly as more people have access to the same discounts and cross-faction selling.

Solid guide and well thought out, regardless of the inflated profitability and a bit of flawed logic

[Upgrayedd]

Well, this is clearly not a guide for 'noobs', as you need at least two level 85s to do it and requires quite a large time and gold investment to get started.

[youngbloodsev]

Sklug - While i wouldnt call it a noobs guide, it is a very good guide in my opinion. I'm on a very low pop server, and on the low faction at that, so i isnt even possible to sell 1 hog per week but I do manage anywhere between 1-2k profit per day without even trying. As I am just now starting to focus on the AH portion of the game, do you have any tips for a low pop server? Im currently a 525 jc/enchanter and 525 miner/engineer. and will hopefully be a 525 herb/alch on an alt here in a few weeks... Maybe write a thread just on lower pop server strategies? Thanks!

Oh, and id rep if i was able to. Still only going to be like my 3rd or 4th post i believe. Ill come back and rep whenever im able to

[mmoivo]

I mostly lurk here but I feel like chiming in because I try explaining this flaw in logic you have to my roommate all the time. Farmed mats aren't "free", in fact they're more expensive than just buying them off the AH and depositing them in your bank. You'd think someone that modeled the entitle OP after an economics class would understand opportunity cost, but it wasn't mentioned so I'll explain.

Any good AH goblin can make way more per hour standing in a major city working the AH or advertising in trade than he/she would farming mats. Your crutch here is that you don't actually "farm" the mats, you let your bot do it for you. Because you didn't have to work for those mats, in your mind they're free.... but they aren't. Just because you didn't pay for those mats doesn't mean they don't have a value. If we assign Elementium Ore a value of 30g/stack let's say... then a stack of Elementium Ore is worth 30g regardless of whether you actually bought it or farmed it, as you could have just sold it back for 30g rather than using it to make something more expensive. All mats, no matter how they were earned, need to be included when calculating profit/loss .

That being said, I don't see anything wrong with the method listed and I think "Bartering" is going to be a huge recruiting tool for guilds as people flock to take advantage of the discount while not everyone has access to it. The downside is, much like the new enchants/jc patterns in 4.06, the selling price of the hogs/vials will drop quickly as more people have access to the same discounts and cross-faction selling.

Solid guide and well thought out, regardless of the inflated profitability and a bit of flawed logic

i agree with this 100% thats all i was trying to tell the OP but i guess he took it the wrong way and thought im flaming . i guess TClemont did a better job at explaining the flaws

[chicochido]

I have 7 truegold player "bot's" whom I send mats and tips on a daily basis for their CD, we have a good business relationship going on, I get at least 7 bars every day plus any procs which are COD to me or they keep. When/if I'm absent for a day truegold bars are COD to me from the same ppl. I pay a set amount for their CD which is about 2% less market value (of course the AH fluctuates my tip does not) but their CD is always used and always payed for. How did I find them? I've learned through every expansion and patches that there will always be ppl like me looking to get a ongoing clientele so for a month I had an alt in town listening in trade for "WTS Truegold CD" (on both factions) and such. made friends with them and the rest is history.

I have 1 miner/herb alt who bots 24/7...well I try to keep the bot on for as much as possible on a 2nd computer. half the herbs are sent to my inscription alt and half the herbs go to a friend of mine for flasks. Half the ore is smelted and used for truegold, left over is stashed in my alt bank as hardened elementium bars, elementium bars, pyrium bars for my BS

I have 1 JC/BS alt who prospects half the ore and makes a bunch of JC items for enchanting mats. I use BS to make a few selected items that sell well in the AH.

I have a 3rd alt Enchanter/Inscriptionist who mills half the boted herbs convert to good selling glyphs and decks, half the enchanting mats goes to my alt bank, half the other goes into vellums and into the AH.

I have a lvl1 of the opposite faction on their AH who scans the AH 1-2 a day

I have a lvl20 in BB who receives items from the lvl1 and "trades" to my main in the neutral AH

The AH is scanned for low selling truegold and other items 2 times a day, and up to 4 times a day on my weekends.

All in all (broken down by time):
Gathering= 24/7 bot
Smelting=10mins (spamming a couple macros)
Prospecting=10mins (spamming a couple macros)
Milling=10mins (spamming a few macros)
Crafting JC items=10mins (spamming a few macros)
DEing JC Items=10mins (spamming a few macros)
Mailbox sending crap to alts and such=<5mins
Getting 7-10 TG from mailbox=<1min (having a line of constant TG flow)
Getting 3-4 TG from AH steals from both factions=~5mins

Wait what about Volatile Air supply...mmm that's my secret to keep

One of my TG suppliers always sends me 2-3 bars per mail/per day, now I don't know if he's really lucky with procs or he has found a way to beat the CD clock somehow.

Yes I have 3 accounts, yes I have the funds to make all these transactions, and yes I do have a life and also raid.

Like the OP says, it's really easy to accomplish all of this if you have a routine and are organized. I don't stand in town spamming trade with my services, I don't stand in town running around in circles, I do a JC, Fishing and the cooking dailies which takes me <5mins, do the heroic and normal random dungeons (On my main which is a tank=insta queue). I don't make choppers I have made a few vial of the sand mounts but ppl in my server are poor not thanks to me I hope but they are very lazy and not many can afford anything more than 10k gold. So I find it more profitable to play the AH/gathering economy game at least in my server.

My daily routine:
Set gathering bot before going to bed
I wake up 2 hours before I go to work, get ready to go, log in
empty bot bags, repair etc log him out
scan my faction and opposite faction AH, buy, sell etc
do my 3 dailies
do my heroic and my normal randoms
Log in and start bot
Go to work
log in other 2 accounts after coming from work
empty bot bags, repair etc log him out
empty my mailboxes
mill, smelt, JC, DE
mail mats to my TG CD's
repost/craft items in AH
scan my faction and opposite faction AH, buy, sell etc
Raid invites
Set gathering bot before going to bed
Rinse and repeat

On my weekends
Same as above, but spend alot of time doing archeology, no raids

My stats: 5 85 toons over 3 accounts, gold capped on 3 toons, 1 alt guild bank with 7 tabs full of crap cause...lets say I'm a good raider and the most popular guildy, just I don't tell ppl how many toons I have and how I get my gold.

This does not work for everyone, but it works for me, same as the OP. I'm sure there's always a troll in a bad mood lurking around looking for a misspelled word to somehow debunk every possible gold making idea that does not fell right to them ore sounds extremely complicated in paper. I have contributed little to these forums, I mean alot of this should be work as intended or common sense, but seems that ppl are lacking or original ideas to put together their own gold making system.

Great OP post, sadly my server lacks of buyers for mounts. +rep

[Upgrayedd]

This does not work for everyone, but it works for me, same as the OP. I'm sure there's always a troll in a bad mood lurking around looking for a misspelled word to somehow debunk every possible gold making idea that does not fell right to them ore sounds extremely complicated in paper. I have contributed little to these forums, I mean alot of this should be work as intended or common sense, but seems that ppl are lacking or original ideas to put together their own gold making system.

Great OP post, sadly my server lacks of buyers for mounts. +rep

I'm sure the guide works fine for OP and some other people too. I applaud OP for taking the time. In general though, there are a few issues with the guide:

1- It claims to be a "noob" guide, when in fact it is anything but
2- It claims you can do all this in 30 minutes a day. I highly doubt this is true. At the very least it requires a huge upfront grind of leveling 2 toons, professions and archaeology.
3- It doesn't take opportunity cost into account. (because the author assumes you are botting, which not everyone does, and certainly not noobs, as it requires a monetary investment and practically requires multiple accounts). If you're willing to bot, you can make plenty of gold without going to all this extra effort.
4- The guide itself describes how to participate in a 'niche' market. The problem with 'niche' markets is that if too many people start participating in them, they cease to become 'niche' markets and lose their profitability. So the mere fact that this guide has been written is a blow to its own usefulness.
5- The guide only works on servers where horde is high pop.

[Sensisativa]

Blah, blah, blah...

Wait what about Volatile Air supply...mmm that's my secret to keep...

Blah, blah, blah

If it's anything other that a miner/herb bot having engineering with a Electrostatic Condenser I'll eat my shirt. Not a secret in any shape.

Edit - It was even in the OP you claimed to have read.

Mining/Engineering

This is VERY important to have mining coupled with engineering, as not only is engineering easier to lvl, but it instead allows you to have the item Electrostatic Condenser, which allows you to also collect some Volatile Air when farming, thus enabling you to get volatile earth, fire and air from mining nodes. This will save thousands of gold over time as airs are the most expensive of the bunch off the AH.

Then again, I could be wrong, it's happened before.

[hpdark]

Do not rely on the undermine journal sold data. If someone cancels an auction it will show as sold. Instead look at what price it's been going up for last week or so and base it off that. Be prepared to undercut the current price and hope for the best

[Sklug]

Do not rely on the undermine journal sold data. If someone cancels an auction it will show as sold. Instead look at what price it's been going up for last week or so and base it off that. Be prepared to undercut the current price and hope for the best

This is a pretty good point that I didn't address in the OP... But, it is not completely true. Theunderminejournal is still somewhat in BETA form... though I am not sure if they will ever be able to 100% get this accurately...

Basically SOME of the time if you cancel an auction it will record it as being sold. I have tested this extensively with many items... I would say the undermine journal is actually pretty good at acknowledging it was a sold or canceled item... BUT, there are exceptions and it occasionally records that canceled as sold.

It scans the AH every 1 hour, so I am guessing that if you cancel the auction DURING the scan or something, it might pop up as sold...

A theory, but yes, it still is always more reliable to view your direct AH.... but again, I believe the vast majority of the time the UMJ does record accurately.

[Traxex84]

@sensisativa Why am I quoted in your post xD?

[Aramourn]

So many whiners over an excellent, thank you very much, even for non-goblins this was extremely useful and interesting. Posts like yours make me wish my rep was worth more then just 1. :/