Spending the Gold Cap #10: Spent

I may or may not have purchased the Magic Rooster you see pictured here. And the spectral kitty. 

What else to do once you hit gold cap, other than spend your fortune? In the Spending the Gold Cap series, I account for the money I earned as I spend it on Unclaimed Black Market Containers, and the occasional pet or mount from the auction house. There will be tears.

The title says it all, folks.

While I began this journey primarily by snatching as many Unclaimed Containers as I possibly could, my server's merger coupled with the fact that I rarely found anything of value in the containers caused me to shift my behavior and be a bit more direct with my purchases. You know, focusing on things like rare mounts and pets from the legit auction house.

As it stands, I don't see any reason to list a final accounting. After all, the ledger essentially reads 0g0s0c, and that's all that matters. Just know that the remaining sum was spent on more rare pets and the remaining few mounts my stable needed to meet the requirements for the Mount Parade achievement. Strangely, it took me a lot longer to spend the gold cap than it did for me to earn it, which may or may not be surprising given my methods. Still, if this whole exercise has taught me anything, it's that anyone can hit the gold cap. I was more of a casual gold-maker, accumulating my fortune over the course of a year. There are more serious goldmakers out there who earn much, much faster than I did. Really though, the common denominator between anyone who's ever hit gold cap is simple: dedication.

I first got into goldmaking from the desire to have more capital than I could spend. I wanted all of the gold sink mounts as soon as they became available. So I made sure I was in a position to never have to struggle over those decisions. I'm really not one for tips, tricks or guides when it comes to goldmaking. There are others out there who do a great job at this. Find a handful of these folks I've leaned on over the years below, and I ask forgiveness in advance as I'm sure I've forgotten some important ones:

Phat Lewts
Power Word: Gold
Stede
Drunken Mogul
Auction House Addict
Selltacular (Copper to Gold)

I encourage you to visit their websites and look at their links and blogrolls where many more goldmaking resources await you.

Now that the gold cap has been both earned and spent, I'm not sure where I'll end up in terms of auctioneering. Granted, I have several hundred auctions posted as I write this, but I don't have any intentions of chasing the gold cap again.

For now.                

RECAP

Spending the Gold Cap #1: 918,167g remaining

Spending the Gold Cap #2: It's easy to spend one-hundred grand

Spending the Gold Cap #3: Competition for containers

Spending the Gold Cap #4: Making it worth my time

Spending the Gold Cap #5: 60,000g  footnote

Spending the Gold Cap #6: Where have all the BMAH containers gone?

Spending the Gold Cap #7: Or is this WoW Weekly?

Spending the Gold Cap #8: End is nigh?

Spending the Gold Cap #9: The day I spent over 300,000g on battle pets

Spending the Gold Cap #9: The day I spent over 300,000g on battle pets

What else to do once you hit gold cap, other than spend your fortune? In the Spending the Gold Cap series, I account for the money I earned as I spend it on Unclaimed Black Market Containers, and the occasional pet or mount from the auction house. There will be tears.

Yesterday, I freed myself of any lingering attachment I held to the half-million remaining on my banker's server and spent over 300,000g in a matter of minutes. Didn't even bat an eye, didn't feel even a slight tinge of regret. 

Earlier that morning, I was tooling around on my main server when I saw a player selling a Magic Rooster Egg and the Reins of the Swift Spectral Tiger in trade chat. My auctioning activity on Emerald Dream has been mostly light until recently, my liquid gold hovering right around 150,000g. I asked the player if they'd take that sum, fully well knowing what the response would be. But if I could come up with another 100,000g, the Rooster Egg was mine, they said.

That triggered something in my brain, my thoughts settling upon the remaining sum stranded on my banker's server. I wondered to myself how I could realistically spend that money. Sure, it would be nice to win a rare mount through the BMAH. However, as the appearance of Mimiron's Head taught me last week, that's a hell of a lot easier said than done. While I would've gladly dumped the entire half-million in that single transaction, I couldn't even stay alive long enough to place a bid. I guess a level 85 in a black tuxedo makes an easy target.

At auction's end, the thing sold for 10,000g more than I had. That experience, coupled with the inability to purchase the Rooster on my main server pushed me to decide that it's time be a bit more spendy and much less discerning when it comes to the money that's left on Bonechewer. 

On a whim, I sauntered over to the Auction House in Dalaran to search for tradeable pets I'm missing, a list I compiled easily at Warcraft Pets. Shockingly, the most expensive pet, going for a 135,000g buyout, was the Ethereal Soul-Trader. There was also a level 25 Spectral Tiger Cub going for much less. I knew that both of the prices were well under the U.S. market average. Hell, the Soul-Trader sells on Ebay for anywhere between $100 and $300 real dollars.

I polled Twitter, and with a wise suggestion by a fellow goldmaker, I nabbed the Soul-Trader for 129,000g and the Spectral Cub for much less. Of course, that doesn't account for the more than 300,000g spent. No, the remaining sum went towards additional pets---11 of them in all---each accessible via in-game channels, but ones most players will not organically acquire because of RNG. When a Blackfuse Bombling drops, some people see a cute little pet, and other people hear the cha-ching! of gold being made. 

I am, and have always been, a patron of both.

So while I won't bother listing which pets I acquired beyond the two above out of respect for my pet-collecting purist friends, let's just say I'm probably farther than most when it comes to Liopleurodon's handy little Warlord's checklist. The accounting:

543,414g

- 129,000g¹

-177,282²

Total Remaining Gold: 237,132g

                                                 

¹Etheral Soul-Trader.

²Spectral Tiger Cub all 11 mystery pets.

Spending the Gold Cap #8: End is nigh?

What else to do once you hit gold cap, other than spend your fortune? In the Spending the Gold Cap series, I account for the money I earned as I spend it on Unclaimed Black Market Containers, and the occasional pet or mount from the auction house. There will be tears.

Ahhh. It's been a good run. Look at me, already talking in the past tense. 

With gold reserves dwindling down to the half-million mark, my thoughts are increasingly turning to how else I might be rid of the sum. All while keeping in mind that the character who holds the gold is stranded on a dead server. I hadn't realized it had been so long, but I haven't actually won a container since November---though somehow I've managed to spend over 70,000g since the last update a few weeks ago. Yikes. I've got some accounting to do. 

Granted, the urgency with which I've monitored the BMAH---even on days where an Unclaimed Container has been posted---has lessened significantly since that time. Plus, given the unfortunate but expected loss taken on nearly every single Unclaimed Container won, I'm not sure I want to chance the second half of the gold cap on more PvP armor I can't even wear. 

Finally, the dead server my banker is stranded won't be dead much longer: it is scheduled to be connected to three or four other realms in the near future, which I have to imagine will only increase the amount of competition I experience when vying for Unclaimed Containers. Like I mentioned earlier, for the second time in a row I have no Containers to report on, yet a hefty sum of gold has been spent: 

618,543g

- 50,000g¹

-10,000g²

-3,973g³

-11,156g†

Total Remaining Gold: 543,414g

                                                     

¹ Went against my own words (again) and transferred a character to my main server, sending gold with him in the process.

²Donated this amount to gold-maker and Twitter friend WoW Profitz for a giveaway promotion he is running.

³My SO has reached 90 on her seldom-played toon, so in addition to Pandaria flight, I financed the gems and enchants on her Timeless gear.

†Incurring eternal damnation from pet-collecting purists, I used Warcraftpets.com to identify missing, tradeable pets and have been scanning the auction house, buying up those at prices befitting of my frugal sensibilities.

The annotations speak for themselves, methinks. While I won't yet say I'm done purchasing Unclaimed Containers, I haven't had great luck as of late and I'm itching for a change. Time invested has not been worth it, and I suspect that relationship will only worsen once realms are connected and the Black Market Auction House has a greater pool of potential buyers.

Til next time, may your bonus rolls include extra gold!

Spending the Gold Cap #6: Where have all the BMAH containers gone?

What else to do once you hit gold cap, other than spend your fortune? In the Spending the Gold Cap series, I account for the money I earned as I spend it on Unclaimed Black Market Containers, and the occasional pet or mount from the auction house. There will be tears.

A funny thing happened since the last StGC post and my return to chilly Wisco from sunny Anaheim, California: I casually went after a couple of Unclaimed Containers on the first two days back -- didn't win them. And then all of a sudden, Unclaimed Containers were no more. I can't say for sure when it started, as I only started paying close attention last Monday, but there haven't been any containers listed on the BMAH for at least five days.

I've checked the BMAH on-and-off since it's inclusion in Mists of Pandaria, and have amped that up to near-daily visits ever since Unclaimed Containers were added in patch 5.3 (in late May). Never before have I seen the BMAH void of containers for more than two days. I assume that what gets listed there is completely random; from what I've seen, Unclaimed Containers have a pretty good chance to be listed, as I'm used to seeing new listings at least every other day, if not every day.

So I'm a bit perplexed, but take comfort in the fact that this is probably just really bad luck. Anyway, not too much to report since the last one. At that point, I was left with:

697,389g

- 108g¹

Remaining Gold: 697,281g

                                                        

¹ Auction-house listing fees. Been unsuccessful dumping the sellable items I've won from unclaimed containers.

Unclaimed Container #1

Contained: Grievous Gladiator's Armplates of Proficiency

Purchase Price: 6,060g
Resale Value: N/A

If you mouse over the tooltip above, that's not an error: even if the toon I bought it on had been level 90, and had been a plate-wearer, he couldn't have used these. Why? Because these are the Alliance version of the armplates. I've won quite a few unusable PvP items in my quest to offload a hefty chunk of my gold, and I've held onto each of them with the hopes someday Blizzard will implement some sort of account-wide chest, ala Diablo III, that would allow you to pass soulbound items between toons on your account. Wishful thinking, I know, and if it does come, it'll probably happen too late. Oh well. There's always the 16g I can recoup should I decide to vendor this item.

Unclaimed Container #2

Contained: Pattern: Fists of Lightning
Purchase Price: 15,920g
Resale Value: ≈1,000

This'll allow a leatherworker to craft intellect mail gloves equivalent in power to what you can find just by stumbling around the Timeless Isle for a short period of time. So in other words, not very attractive at all. Given that these are quite easily obtainable by running this expansion's earlier raids, I'm a bit disappointed to even see these as options. That and it's not the first shite pattern I've landed. Anyway, I've had this one up to resell for more than a month and I've got no takers. I don't anticipate saying goodbye to this pattern any time soon.

With that, let's have a look where I'm at:

697,281g

- 6,060g

- 15,920g

Total Remaining Gold: 675,301g

Spending the Gold Cap #4: Making it worth my time

What else to do once you hit gold cap, other than spend your fortune? In the Spending the Gold Cap series, I account for the money I earned as I spend it on Unclaimed Black Market Containers, and the occasional pet or mount from the auction house. There will be tears.

In the last Spending the Gold Cap, I had only one container to report on. Seems this quiet little server still has some players with deep pockets and a penchant for gambling, which has made container acquisition a bit more tricky, not to mention pricey. The thing is, if you're playing this game, both you and your competition are working with a finite resource: gold. At some point, you're both going to run out assuming you're not making it faster than you can spend it. So how you spend your gold when bidding can be rather important. If you're going to lose the bidding war over these containers, make sure your opponent is paying his/her fair share---the more they pay for containers they win, the sooner (in theory) they'll be pushed out of the market.

I've now noticed a handful of players who regularly return to check the prices on containers, though since the server population is on the lower end, I rarely enter a situation where I'm in a bidding war with more than one person. I pay attention to how often they return to their mailbox to get a sense of how much gold they have on hand. Are they heading to the mailbox every two or three outbids? It's likely they're working with 20-25k gold. The key is paying attention to your competition; it's the only way to drive them out or beat them.

Just the other night I arrived at the BMAH to find a container at just over 6k with less than 30 minutes left. Within a minute or two after my bid, my competition arrived. They ended up leaving with the container, but not before the price was pushed upwards of 20,000g. The week prior, I had a player openly state they were willing to bid up to a whopping 50,000g after I outbid them with a mere 7k. Now curious, I decided to call their bluff. And they weren't bluffing. That player walked away with a container for which they paid more than 40,000g. They must not know they're likely to receive a piece of armor they can't use, or if lucky, a battle pet worth a couple thousand gold. Either way, I removed 60,000g from the market, and hopefully, some competition went with it.

I've gone on long enough, though. I have three containers to report on for this edition, so let's look at the tally:

Last Tally: 804,874g

+ 1,900G¹

- 43g²

Total Remaining Gold: 806,731g

                                            

¹ Sold the Teldrassil Sproutling I won in an earlier container.

² Repairs; did some questing and dungeon-running with a friend.

UNCLAIMED CONTAINER #1

Contained: Cryptstalker Wristguards
Purchase Price: 11,500g 

Resale Value: N/A

I'm getting fairly used to receiving pieces of armor I'll never be able to use---out of everything one can purchase from the BMAH, armor is prevalent, whether no-longer-acquirable tier sets or items for use in current content.  

UNCLAIMED CONTAINER #2

Contained: Elwynn Lamb
Purchase Price: 6,670g 

Resale Value: ≈ 3,500g

Some may know I'm an avid pet collector, and naturally I have one of these in my collection. You know what that means: let's play Recoup our Losses! This puppy lamb will have to get used to the auction house, because that's where it's going to spend its days until someone takes it off my hands for a couple thousand gold. That, or during a bout of generosity I may just give it away to someone who needs it. 

UNCLAIMED CONTAINER #3

Contained: Plans: Chestplate of Limitless Faith
Purchase Price: 7,350g 

Resale Value: ≈ 3,000g

A 3k resale value very well may be wishful thinking, as the only people in the market for a chest pattern like this are profession completionists. That's right: someone who wants to maximize the amount of patterns they have on a character might be interested in this, but the chest the pattern creates is all but worthless now, especially given how easy it is to acquire ilvl 496 epics on the Timeless Isle. Now if I could only sell the items from Containers 1 & 2 I'd have enough for an extra container! After these three containers, here's where I'm sitting:

806,731g

-11,500g

-6,670g

-7,350g

Total Remaining Gold: 781,211g

Spending the Gold Cap #3: Competition for containers

What else to do once you hit gold cap, other than spend your fortune? In the Spending the Gold Cap series, I account for the money I earned as I spend it on Unclaimed Black Market Containers, and the occasional pet or mount from the auction house. There will be tears.

It's not that I haven't been trying for Unclaimed Containers since the last post three weeks ago. Believe me, I have---though my own forgetfulness will occasionally contribute to me not rechecking the auction house when I should be. However, containers have been selling for as much as 20,000g, a price that gives me pause. As you can guess, I haven't been on the winning end of many containers this month...ONE so far, to be exact.

I know. One isn't really worthy of an entire post, unless it has yielded something amazing. Well folks, I'm breaking that rule. This week's item isn't a total loss right out of the gate. So let's get right to the accounting:

Last tally: 816,267g

+ 177g¹

= 816,444g

                                        
¹ Did a small amount of questing with a friend who returned to the game.

UNCLAIMED CONTAINER

Contained: Teldrassil Sproutling
Purchase Price: 11,570g
Resale Value: ≈ 2000g

It definitely lessens the blow when you win an item that can potentially be resold. Like the pattern I won earlier, I can fortunately list this item on the auction house. When I first unboxed the item, there were none listed, so I posted mine for the high price of 5,000g. At relist, there was another going for 2,000g. As always, I'd be happy to recoup any amount of money at this point. As it currently stands, to date, I've managed to spend 1/5th of my fortune:

816,444g

- 11,570g

Total Remaining Gold: 804,874g

Army of One: Deathcharger's Reins are not a lie

I really was in the midst of putting together a quick video guide when the Deathcharger's Reins dropped for me last week. You, too, can have this ultra-rare mount in your possession if you're willing to embark on a relentless pursuit (or if you're just plain lucky). I don't know how many hundred times I've cleared this place in the last six years. Several hundred, for sure.

This four-and-a-half minute video offers a quick run-through of the dungeon along with some tips and tricks.

In summary:

1. Enter through the Eastwall Gate in the Eastern Plaguelands.

2. You should be able to avoid aggroing all of the trash in here. If you aggro a mob, deal with it in place to avoid pulling additional trash.

3. You must kill the first three bosses and the acolytes inside the ziggurats behind the bosses in order to reach the Slaughterhouse where the final boss who drops the mount, Aurius Rivendare, is located.

4. BoEs in here have translated into thousands of gold worth of transmoggables for me since MoP---you may want to hold onto what drops and try selling it on the auction house.

5. Each run should take you 3-4 minutes once you get the hang of it; of course, you'll quickly hit your instance limit this way. However, the instance limit is per account, per realm. If you're up for a serious farming sesh with multiple characters, run it once with character 1, then immediately log off and onto character 2. Once character 2 runs it once, log off and back onto character 1. Character 1 will now be just inside the start of the instance, not in the final boss room where you left him/her. Take a few steps to port out, reset all instances, and port back in. Rinse and repeat.

Good luck, and thanks for reading/watching!

Looking for more soloing action? Check out my guides on Malygos (Azure & Blue Drakes) and Onyxia (Reins of Onyxia).

Spending the Gold Cap #2: It's easy to spend one-hundred grand

What else to do once you hit gold cap, other than spend your fortune? In the Spending the Gold Cap series, I account for the money I earned as I spend it on Unclaimed Black Market Containers, and the occasional pet or mount from the auction house. There will be tears.

In the midst of my tallies this week I discovered a hole. A gaping, 80,000g hole. Now what did I buy...late at night...in the wee hours of the morning? Please not the Rocket Chicken, please not the Rocket Chicken. It wasn't the Rocket Chicken. Since the last post, I've only been able to land two Unclaimed Containers. Which of course doesn't come close to explaining where the 100,000g+ went. So before revealing the contents of the containers, I'll account for the rest of the money.

Last tally: 918,937g

- 9,000g (character expenses)¹

= 909,937g

- 80,000g (Jeweled Onyx Panther)²

= 829,937g

                                  

¹ A friend recently returned to the game and this money went to setting him up, aside from 500g I sent to my engineer to aid in the leveling process.

² 80,000g for a mount that at the absolute minimum would cost the crafter 72,000g seemed too good to pass up, considering I still mean to craft the four other panther mounts without dipping into my gold-cap money.

UNCLAIMED CONTAINER #1

Contained: Blood-soaked Invitation
Purchase Price: 7,540g
Resale Value: N/A

Most expensive Brawler's Guild Invite ever??!? Nah, I'm sure someone's received one of these for a much higher final bid. Still, this one stung a bit. I can't even remember how I got into the Brawler's Guild months ago, but given that I did, this item is 100% useless to me, like the majority of items I've received thus far from Unclaimed Containers. The item is soulbound, and will remain in my bags until I muster the nerve to delete it.

UNCLAIMED CONTAINER #2

Contained: Tyrranical Gladiator's Armplates of Alacrity
Purchase Price: 6,130g
Resale Value: 15g89s (vendor)

As you can see, those are plate bracers. For those playing at home, you may recall my banker here is a mage. But as if the armor type weren't enough to render this item completely useless to me, it's also the Alliance version of the item---I'm a Hordie. This is why I'd really, really like to see some sort of account-wide storage introduced into game so players could at least ferry these soulbound items between one another.

The Tally

829,937g

-7,540g
- 6,130g

Total Remaining Gold: 816,267g

How to start making gold in WoW

Will skill and dedication, you too can own all of the gold-sink mounts.

Recently, I was outed as a gold-maker to someone I'm connected to on Twitter, and I'll admit I felt rather sheepish. My blog lately has been full of wild predictions about the game, complaining about player behavior, and bragging about how I'm going to spend my gold---not acquire more. See, the Tweeter in question wanted to know how they should go about turning profits with several maxed professions and 10,000g on hand.

So I thought back to how and when I started, and the race to the gold cap---which really wasn't a race at all---it took me a year, though I wasn't very good about not spending what I was making. See, I'm not like those real gold-makers, then ones I read and have listed below. I got in, got my score, and I'm out. Retiring on my fortune. I don't have several million gold to my name, but I have one million, and that's well enough for me. 

With what I've learned going through the process mostly unaided, and then after connecting with more knowledgeable gold-makers on the web, especially on Twitter, I have some practical suggestions to help new gold-makers get on their way. I think there are really two ways to make gold in WoW: the slow & steady, and the smart & fast, though the best of gold-makers do both, in my humble opinion. The amount of time you put in will correlate positively with the amount of gold for both methods.

Slow & Steady

This method is primarily what I used---I used the professions I had at my disposal to create valuable goods to sell to other players: gems, glyphs, enchants, armor, etc. Of course, you're never going to be the only person on your server doing this, so you'll need to monitor the auction house to make sure your auctions are in a position to sell---namely, you're not being undercut to all hell. I use an addon to assist in this process (included in the list below), and really, I would recommend you don't bother starting your gold-making journey without it. 

At times I would check the auction house a dozen times or more throughout the day to ensure my stuff was readily purchasable. I'd immediately re-post what had been bought out. It took patience and vigilance. On good days I'd pull in 10-15,000g. On average days, it was more like 5,000g. Please note, though, that I never farmed for mats. Sometimes it meant waiting for raw goods prices to drop on the auction house, but you should always be able to realize a profit, even with buying materials.

Smart & Fast

Admittedly, I'm not very good at this. But then transmogrification happened and I was able to enjoy a teeny tiny slice of that pie. To date, I've made hundreds of thousands of gold from green BoE items. That player lamenting in trade chat about high priced "leveling" greens? I am a reagent in a cauldron wherein boils that player's anger and frustration. 

Smart and fast isn't just putting out what you can---it's knowing what sells, why it sells. It's anticipating player demand based on the calendar, on patch cycles. It's knowing when it's wise to reset, or buy out an entire market, in order to make a potentially large profit. Sure, there's risk involved here, but the more knowledgeable you are about your server's economy, the more risk is mitigated. 

Like I said before, the best players are experts in both of these methods, and use them both. I preferred slow & steady simply because I knew it would get me there, and I wasn't in that much of a hurry. But if you'd like to turn a hefty profit quickly, some research is in order. Don't get me wrong---my method worked and took me to gold cap. But I also feel like I worked to get to that cap. Take that for what it is.

Now, the list.

The List

1. Connect with other gold-makers on Twitter, Reddit and the web

I'm more of a Twitter guy, and have been reading gold-making blogs since late last year. People also find Reddit useful. Make sure you check out Cold's Gold Factory, Power Word: Gold, Elvine and Auction House Addict---and take note of their blog rolls (no worries if you don't have Twitter---their websites are linked in their bios). These are some folks I found early on, and I identified many of my own mistakes just by reading about what they did and what worked for them. Either way, I was amazed at the sheer number of gold-makers I've come across who are writing/podcasting about their exploits.

2. Get TradeSkillMaster and get a basic tutorial

Perhaps there are serious gold-makers out there who don't use this addon, but I don't know them. It's a game-changer. It would be like if you've been taking the flight path from Thunder Bluff to Orgrimmar and back for months, then you realize you're a mage and could've been teleporting yourself this entire time! I don't know what else to say about it. Not using this addon leaves any gold-maker at a severe disadvantage. That said, it can be little daunting to use---don't hesitate to reach out to a fellow gold-maker or search for a guide on YouTube. Your time spent will be well worth it.

3. Don't spend, and if you must, spend wisely

I did not do well with this part---I spent several-hundred-thousand on things I wanted but totally didn't need during my quest to the gold cap. Granted, your goal may be different than mine---maybe you don't even have one. Still, you're going to need to spend gold sometimes. Not on a Grand Expedition Yak, but possibly gems, enchants, flasks, and other goods for your raiding toon. When you do this, utilize friends and guildies to reduce cost. If you must use the auction house, never buy finished products---the cost of the raw materials and a nice tip for the crafter will almost always be the cheaper route.

4. Familiarize yourself with the Undermine Journal and WoWuction

These are two great resources when it comes to analyzing the economy. I used the Undermine Journal to look up my competition in order to identify their heaviest posting times, among other things. I set up alerts with WoWuction that sent me emails informing me when certain items were too cheap to not snatch up and re-list. I've flipped (purchased low, sold high) hundreds of lower-level green items thanks to WoWuction alerts.

5. Identify your potential markets---have a plan

You may have all professions at your disposal, or you may have just one or two. Regardless, it's important to identify the things you can produce that will fetch you the greatest profit. Gems and enchants will be consistent sellers, though much heavier when a new raid tier gets released---you can guess why. Of course, you'll likely find heavy competition in these markets. Maybe your leveling toon is coming across a boatload of BoEs, or you're getting them on your main from all that Deathcharger farming. Either way, don't go in blind---have an idea of where your profit might come from, run with it, and if you're struggling, reach out to the community---I think we're all more than happy to help.

Spending the Gold Cap #1: 918,167g remaining

Screenshot taken at Wowhead

What else to do once you hit gold cap, other than spend your fortune? In the Spending the Gold Cap series, I account for the money I earned as I spend it on Unclaimed Black Market Containers, and the occasional pet or mount from the auction house. There will be tears.

I chronicled the journey to gold cap, so now I may as well chronicle the journey back to broke. See, not too long ago I hopped servers with several of my most-played characters. The choice to leave my gold-capped banker behind would've been tough had I had to actually make it. But since Blizzard also enforces a cap on how much gold a player can transfer with a character, my money was essentially stuck on the the server. Sure, I could've purchased items from the current AH to sell on the new realm, but I wasn't interested in doing so.

So I've decided just how I'm going to spend as much of it as I can: Unclaimed Black Market Containers. I briefly thought about spending the lot in one chunk with a gold cap bid on a rare mount, should any of the ones I have my eye on hit the Black Market. Weighing the fact it took me about a year to reach the cap through auctioneering at varied levels of intensity, I've ruled that out. I've spent a chunk here and there on miscellaneous items, mostly battle pets I'm too lazy to farm, and also sent 50,000g with one of my transferred toons, but otherwise my fortune is relatively in tact.

Unclaimed Containers will hold any one of at least 200 items that are sold on the black market auction house, everything from a Shimmering Wyrmling to Invincible's Reins. Luckily, the server my wealthy banker plays on is medium-low pop, meaning I can normally snatch up Unclaimed Containers for 10,000g or less. I'm trying to keep it at that threshold, which would allow me to open approximately 99 Unclaimed Containers before my funds ran out.

View a full accounting of my ledger and the contents of the first three UBMC's below.

999,999g

- 50,000g (sent with transferred toon)
= 949,999g

- 1,832g (pets and misc. items)

= 948,167g

Unclaimed Container #1

Contained: Pattern: Robe of Eternal Rule
Purchase Price: 16,100g
Resale Value: 4,940g

A 496 cloth robe would've been appealing earlier in the expansion. Maybe 16,000g-appealing. But this late in the game, it's not of much use to me. I posted it on the auction house for around 6,000g at first, and it ended up selling for about a grand less after a couple of weeks---I was happy to be able to recoup any of the cost.

Unclaimed Container #2

Contained: Dreadnaught Gauntlets
Purchase Price: 7,770g
Resale Value: N/A

Absolutely, 100% useless to my banker, who is a mage. My secret wish for an upcoming patch is that either A) these items become account-bound so players can at least send them to alts on their server or B) pie-in-the-sky dream has Blizzard creating a true account-wide storage that could be accessed by any character on any realm.

Unclaimed Container #3

Contained: Fishing Chair
Purchase Price: 10,300g
Resale Value: N/A

I think the item itself is cute, but again, I fish with my main character who's not on the same realm. Since it's also soulbound, I'm stuck with it while secretly hoping I'll be able to some day ferry it onto a toon that would actually use it. 

The Tally

948,167g

-16,100g
(+ 4,940g)

- 7,770g

- 10,300g

Total Remaining Gold: 918,937g

Chasing the Gold Cap: Not a greedy bastard

I logged into my banker earlier today to collect the cash from a handful of sold auctions and repost those that had expired. You may be tempted to remind me I said I was done with the auctioneering routine after having hit the gold cap. I lied. Apparently, these old habits just don't die.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've mainly been dealing in the transmog market while still selling other odds and ends I come across---moving from a low-pop realm to high-pop realm means the markets require a significantly larger time investment to control, and I'm simply not interested in doing that. I'm averaging around 1000g per day on mostly low-level greens; admittedly, a small take, but more than enough to cover the needs of my cadre of toons.

So I always enjoy opening my mail and seeing something like this:

Though the diction and grammar leaves something to be desired (yes, I'm that kind of a dick), I was happy to see it wasn't a player cussing me out. Cause that happens on occasion. I quickly checked the auction house: gloves were still listed at my designated fallback price of 1499g. Though they were the only pair for sale, of course I'd be happy to sell them to this player for their desired price. They took the time to contact me, they were polite, and perhaps didn't have the means to pay top dollar.

Just a few hours later, I checked my mail again to find a pair of Abjurer's Gloves had sold for 1400g, in addition to a C.O.D. and a thank-you from the player above. Seriously, buyers. Not all of us auctioneers are greedy, heartless bastards. Yes, we have more gold than we'll probably ever spend and for whatever reason are constantly trying to fill our grubby little hands with more, but we'd just as soon share it and support those who also love this game.

I know it can seem frustrating to leveling players in general when they hit the AH for an upgrade only to discover the level 23 cloth headpiece they'd like costs 10x the amount of gold they've amassed. But what about you moggers out there...have you ever contacted a seller to see if you could get a better deal?

Sellers, do you often cut players breaks like this, or are you a cut-throat, no-holds-barred tycoon just trying to make his/her million?

Chasing the Gold Cap Casually: Hold onto those greens

Unrelated header image FTW.

So I haven't completed abandoned auctioneering after hitting the gold cap after all. Now I just do it more casually and pass on my tips. 

Haven't totally gotten out of the auctioneering game---but I'm no longer making enemies. I am pleased to say that casual posting every couple of days or so has provided me with a steady income---even a profit in spite of all the silly things I throw gold at. But I'm not seeing income through the channels that were familiar to me on my old server when pushing for the gold cap---mainly gems, glyphs, and enchants. I simply don't have the time or will to spend much of an effort controlling a market. However, being on a more active server has provided some pleasant results in the transmog market.

You see, I run The Eye, Molten Core and Stratholme each week for reasons you can probably guess---oftentimes on multiple toons. This nets me with a ridiculous amount of BoE green weaponry and armor. I've been saving and posting everything (except, of course necks, rings and trinkets, and could probably do the same with cloaks and wrists as they aren't big sellers, either). Even the 80-90 greens I've come across while farting around in Pandaria. Blues, too, will serve as good sellers on occasion.

I had my TSM auctioning group set up with a fallback price of 775g---meaning that if there's no item like it on the AH, that's the default posting price. Now that I've noticed I'm selling roughly three pieces every two days at fallback---that's not counting the items that only go for several hundred---I've raised the fallback price to 1475g. Eager to see what happens, though I don't anticipate sales to slow down, even with doubling the fallback.

So if your server isn't completely dead and you'd like a steady income from casual posting, hold onto those greens! If you think your server's economy is too sluggish, this advice should be relevant come 5.4 with with introduction of virtual realms, which by all accounts will include auction-house sharing. A penny (or item) saved is a penny earned, and this holds true in Warcraft---so long as you can afford the bag space.

Chasing the Gold Cap Revisited: I'm there

There are no dings. No error messages or game crashes. No achievements, bells, whistles, or fireworks. Anyone who's gold-capped a toon knows how it all goes down, without pomp and fanfare. Suddenly, the game won't let you retrieve any more gold from your mailbox. You click, but nothing happens---so I had to do some maneuvering to get the screenshot above showing my banker, Martinfury, holding exactly 999,999g99s99c. That, my friends, seems to be the per-character gold cap.

Truth is, I've had well over a million gold for quite some time now. So while I could've fudged and said that I'd hit my goal almost on time---the end of April---I felt it necessary to stick to my original plan: gold capped on my banker, not an accumulation of all the gold on my account regardless of faction or server. Had I counted the summation of my wealth, I'd have been capped more than a month ago. Sometimes I think I can be too much of a purist.

So that's that. No parting words of wisdom. My methods could be described in but a word: dedication. Just stay at it, and you'll get there (but seriously, if you have questions I'll be happy to attempt answers). When I get stumped, I'll often check out the heavy hitters: Elvine, Cold's Gold Factory, WoW Profitz, Power Word: Gold, Auction House Addict, Copper to Gold, among others.

Now. Enough camping the AH. It's time to camp the BMAH!

Series Recap:
Inaugural Post - Chasing the Gold Cap in a Material World
Chasing the Gold Cap Update #1
Chasing the Gold Cap Update #2: A spending problem
Chasing the Gold Cap Update #3: A penny saved
Chasing the Gold Cap Update #4: Ghost iron bore
Chasing the Gold Cap Update #5: Thanks...but why?
Chasing the Gold Cap Special Edition: You've got competition...now what?
Chasing the Gold Cap Update #6: Panic mode
Chasing the Gold Cap Update #7: Two week notice
Chasing the Gold Cap Update #8: The final week
Chasing the Gold Cap: Unrealized Goals

Chasing the Gold Cap: Unrealized goals

Ahh, gold. Such a wonderful, wonderful history we've had. It all started in the Burning Crusade when I was flipping Arcanite Bars to make sure I had more gold than I'd ever need. At that time, 20,000g was more than enough. I've been a quarter-millionaire a couple of times and a half-millionaire once between then and now, and would've hit the gold cap long ago were it not for my penchant for gold sinks. Would've, could've, should've. I know. Enough with the excuses!

I'll admit that when I set May 1st as the goal for reaching the gold cap, I knew it was likely I would get there so long as I maintained my normal level of auctioning activity. Heck, I was averaging 60,000-80,000g per week...no problem, right?! In surveying my profits over the last month, it's hard to believe I had that much flow at one time. Seems like it was so long ago. The glyph market has long been taken from my hands, while at the same time several very aggressive sellers have jumped in. The gem market has been on a month-and-a-half-long dive thanks to a farmer who feels bad when posting cuts for over 100g, and I didn't have the time or patience to try taking it back.

So in liquid gold -- meaning a tally of all of the gold held by the Banker on his server -- I've reached 888,663g. Do I have 26,500g out on loan? Yes. Did I send 50,000g with the Main on his journey to Emerald Dream? Yes. Do I have another 17,000g sitting on an Alliance toon? Yes. But even if you add all of that up, I'm still shy of the cap.

Needless to say, this has been fun. I hope everyone who has read one or some of this series gained some insight, or had a laugh or two at my expense. I've never claimed to be doing it right, just claimed to be doing it. I've enjoyed writing about it, and will continue to do so, probably from different angles---I'm in no hurry whatsoever to make another million.

Gold-making is fun and rewarding, however, it's also time-consuming. I could easily log into the game and spend a chunk of the evening auctioning, crafting, prospecting, cancelling and re-posting. Coincidentally, now that I've reached the target date, I'm tired and want to be done with it! It's time to get back to playing alongside friends: chasing achievements, battling pets, raiding, leveling alts, and occasionally scoping the BMAH for things I can buy with my profits.

I'd like to say I'll continue to write about gold-making on a regular basis, but I'm not sure that's true. I've already alluded to the fact I'm meaning to take a break from any gold-making activities (once I do hit the cap, of course). Also, I'm not that great or efficient at it overall---'slow and steady wins the race' is my mantra. Lastly, there are plenty of other gold-makers out there who offer regular content and a larger amount of resources.

In closing, I'm going acknowledge those who've inspired or helped me along the way---these are the folks I'll be reading for the best gold-making tips; that is, once I'm ready to belly up to the auction house once more.

Nev @ Auction House Addict - If it weren't for Nev and her 20 Days of Gold Making series, I would've never written Chasing the Gold Cap. Though that series began in late December/January, just today I saw a blogger who tackled one of the 20 topics in my Twitter feed.

Elvine - The amount of resources this guy has is staggering. I did pick up some valuable transmog tips in the last few months here, and I have Elvine to thank for several thousand gold via armor sales. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. You can get lost in the forums, and that's not such a bad thing.

Phat Lewt's - Great info here, and he publishes content regularly. While podcasts and streams are great and all, I prefer to read as I can pick and choose where I want to go next. Time is money!

Til next time!

Chasing the Gold Cap Update #8: the final week

"If at first you don't succeed, drink yourself stupid and pass out in the streets." - the Banker

I've mentally checked out. While I would absolutely love to add my accounts receivable -- money borrowed to friends and/or located off-server -- to boost the final number, I just can't in good conscience. Like I said earlier on in this series, I knew full well I was in the midst of a personal competition when I sent away that money, accepting that risk in doing so.

Gold amount at last update: 830,972g
Auctioning activity between then and now: extremely low
Current gold amount: 848,914g
+/- Change: 17,942g

A week involving little posting activity has passed, and my profit shows it. Partially because the amount of gold remaining to hit the cap in seven days is staggering: 150,000g. Also partly because I've transferred the Main off-server, which has pulled my attention off Bonechewer as I get assimilated to a new server, guild and faction.

At this rate, I only need to pull in 21,500g every day for the remainder of this month in order to hit the gold cap. And that's likely to happen. Not. Currently, I'm considering making a last ditch attempt to close that gap. If I decide to go for it, I'll begin tonight, and the vast majority of my playtime will involve crafting, flipping and posting.

Since the amount of gold you can transfer with a character caps at 50,000g, I envision slowly spending the gold I've acquired on Bonechewer's BMAH, specifically on pets and mounts I've not yet collected.

All in all, I am a bit disappointed to be in this position right now, but excited still at the prospect of making a mad dash to the finish line. Either way, if I don't see 999,000 gold within a week's time, I'll still be chasing the gold cap on Bonechewer. It's a goal I've been ambling towards for the past nine months, and regardless of not hitting this goal, regardless of server transfers, I will get there, albeit casually.

Thanks for reading.

Chasing the Gold Cap Update #7: Two Week Notice

Well. A lot of things have happened since last post. Good things, and some terrible, terrible things. The kinds of things that make you not want to write. Or even get up in the morning. But we keep going. We've heard, and will continue to hear enough about the terrible things. So I'm going to talk about the good things as they relate to the subject of this blog.

Our raid group has essentially dissolved on Bonechewer. While some aspects are bittersweet, our core has moved server to be with a more organized and active guild. Overall, this has proved to be a very good thing. While the guild is still wrapping up their recruitment, it's become clear to me that this was the right decision to make. The guildies who've come along -- which has turned out to be 95% of them -- echo this sentiment.

For better or worse, the move has really put a dent in my resolve to hit the gold cap by the end of the month, especially while dealing with the unwitting market-crasher I mentioned in the last posts. I feel like I've given my two-week notice to Bonechewer and my list of characters remaining there: the Alt, the Enforcer, the Banker. Ones I have not yet named -- that's right: the Main is now an Alliance pandaren shaman. You won't find him on Bonechewer, but that deserves its own post. For all purposes, I've mentally checked out.

Gold amount at last update: 848,556g
Auctioning activity between then and now: quasi-moderate
Current gold amount: 830,972g
+/- Change: -17,854g

The nice chunk of cash known as the gold cap? Seems I couldn't wait, and after loading the Main up with sellables, the Banker sent him enough coin to reach the transfer cap of 50,000g -- which, of course, set me back a bit. Which also doesn't help when you're already behind. So! This likely ain't happenin'. Not by the end of the month. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to try. Given my current situation, the logical choice is...........HAVE A SALE!

I methodically went through every character I have on Bonechewer and posted every sellable likely to sell. I think at peak I had over 1,500 live auctions. I've sold quite a bit since then and have recouped more than 20,000g of the 50,000g I sent along with the Main. Though I'm not set to recover all of my costs, every bit helps. Though the gold cap is longer be attainable by the end of the month unless I get cute, I'm not going to stop auctioning.

Cause papa don't need more cute. Papa needs new shoes.

Chasing the Gold Cap Update #6: Panic Mode

Red button because Panic Mode (img src: WoWWiki)

Well now.

I've managed to speak with every single one of my main competitors in the glyph and gem markets. Mainly, I wanted to get a sense of their motivations, since I have a pretty clear goal in mind. My glyph competitor, a friendly warlock, seemed happy to "share" the market -- as he put it -- and even offered to whitelist me until the end of month! Whitelisting, for those unfamiliar, is when you essentially never undercut a certain player. Unfortunately, he didn't end up whitelisting me in the end. Thus, glyph sales have been mostly shite.

Gem markets have been equally terrible, and for better or worse, it IS one of my main competitors who is absolutely defecating all over the market -- and it's because she has a soft heart: she doesn't feel it's fair to players to post gems for, let's say, more than 100g. Nope. She feels bad for the players. How cute.

Market price be damned, she's resolved herself to listing damn near every single gem cut known to both man and goblin for a prices as low as 1/5th the crafting cost! IDKWTF to do other than resort to swearing via acronym. It's gotten so bad other players are reaching out to ME, as a big player in the market, in frustration. See the report below to get a sense of how this has affected my profit these last two weeks (hint: I've been averaging 37,000g per week up to this point).

Gold amount at last update: 805,255g
Auctioning activity between then and now: moderate to high
Current gold amount: 848,556g
+/- Change: 43,331g

That's just over half of what I average in one week. Problem is, it took me two weeks to acquire it.

I'm kind of out of ideas here. Truth is I was just planning on working just a wee bit harder to coast past my goal in time. Now I'm facing a situation where I need to work harder & smarter while taking risks. Fact is, the JC market killer isn't going anywhere without some coaxing. I'm considering buying her out -- along with another player -- and reposting at costs even lower than what she's been posting. She farms a good deal of her mats, and we'd like to ensure it's not worth her time. Yes, it entails a significant investment, a cutthroat attitude AND profit loss in the short-term with the potential to return the market back to a more balanced state...but desperate times call for it.

Wish me luck. I need it.

Chasing the Gold Cap Update #5: Thanks but...why?

Found this in my mailbox earlier today.

It's been one of those weeks.

While managing not to send small sums of gold to random players, I've been maintaining a steady profit. In fact, this is probably one of the largest sums I've made over a two week period. It's surely the largest I've posted since I started keeping track for this Chasing the Gold Cap exercise.

Gold amount at last update: 716,084g
Auctioning activity between then and now: high
Current gold amount: 805,255g
+/- Change: 89,171g

There's been a resurgence in glyph sales. I've done well over 10k during these last two weeks, and that's mostly just by posting and leaving them to expire; I rarely scan the AH for undercut glyphs to cancel and repost like I do with gems. Whatever the reason for rise in demand, it's been a nice complement to the killing I've been making with jewelcrafting.

I have been pretty aggressive in the gem market, but I've also acquired some new competition. Normally no big deal, but the issue here is that he's a Real ID friend. Meaning we both get to see when the other logs on, presumably to post auctions. Up to this point, I hadn't decided whether this is a good or bad thing. It's a good thing. He's on his JC as I write this sentence, most definitely undercutting the auctions I posted earlier this morning. So as soon as he logs off of that toon, I'll cancel my auctions and undercut him. As a child of the Aughts might say, it's a Doggy Dogg world.

And there he goes.

Some notes, in no particular order:

• I'm not counting on seeing the 25k+ Vial of the Sands loan money. If I were being less strict about this exercise I'd simply pile it onto the final sum and mark it as an asset. But I chose to loan the gold fully aware of my gold cap chase deadline, which means I assume all risks. Including untimely/no repayment. 
• In recalling the last update, I remarked how the glyph market was doing surprisingly well, meaning it's been strong for about a month now.
• The transmog market has been quiet. I'm still occasionally buying up pieces on the cheap.

I need to have weeks like these past two. That happens and the cap is definitely in reach by the end of April. And I think I've figured out what I'm going to do with part of my profits: give them away. Perhaps randomly, perhaps in response to acts of kindness I witness...haven't decided the method, just the madness.

Read the first post
Read Update #1
Read Update #2
Read Update #3
Read Update #4