So you want to make gold? Ok. You know that big fortunes lie in utilizing professions? Ok. Do you know what else do you need? No worries, I'll tell you.
This time it's time to go through some basic gold making tools. These really are the bread and butter of auction house goblins, but if you are just starting or only dreaming about big fortunes, you will need to learn the basics. So with basics we start.
Bank alt
You are going to
sell a lot of stuff if you want to make a lot of gold. That’s simple enough. So
you need some way to handle the amounts of things you put to auction house. If
you want to be efficient, you’ll need a bank alt. A bank alt is a character
that’s purpose is to live between auction house and mailbox. It will be the character
handling all your auctions. Also an added benefit is, that your bank alt is
anonymous and different from your other characters. Don’t make the idiotic
mistake and name your bank character to “Joesbank”, “Isellstuff”, “Iundercut”,
“Buyfromme” or something in those lines. You want your bank alts name to be as
unmemorable and normal as you can. Of course the other ah players come to know
you, but the average player doesn’t recognize that this character is a bank and
ah character. There’s a psychological factor involved: People are less likely to
buy from a character that says in the name they are going to make profit on
your expense. And whatever you do, don’t name your bank alt in the same
formula that you name your other characters. Let me repeat one more time: You
don’t want people to know that this bank alt is connected to your other
characters!
What a bank alt
then actually does? Usually bank alts are in lower levels. They are easy to
make and sometimes easy to get rid of if that seems a good thing to do. You
don’t want your bank alt to be level 1. Level him or her to at least level 10.
Many people have addons that block whispers from people who are under certain
level range. Many gold sellers try to whisper from random level 1 characters
and people want to block those whispers. Sometimes you need to whisper with
people, don’t let them block you. The second thing for bank alt is that you want
to have the biggest bags you can afford. Currently the biggest normal bag is
tailoring-crafted Illusionary bag. Then you just send everything you craft or
other stuff you want to sell in auction house to your bank alt and he or she
will handle auctioning and ah mail. That way your other characters are not
clogged with crafted stuff. It’s also easier to keep record of sales and other
relevant information.
Bank guild
When handling
large amounts, even the biggest bags are too small. That’s why it’s important
that in addition to your bank alt you’ll get a bank guild. Bank guild is simply
a guild that you use to have the large guild bank space available. If you get
hundreds of stacks of ore for example, guild bank is the only way you can keep
them waiting the time to be prospected.
Making a guild
is easier than ever. Go to your capital city's guild npc and make a guild. You'll get a
charter that needs five unique signatures from other players (from different
players, you can’t have them with different alts) who are not member of any
guild. You should advertise in trade chat that you want people to sign your
guild charter. Stand in a place like Stormwind or Ogrimmar bank stairs so it’s
an easy place for the people to come to. Offer to pay some gold to the people
signing your charter. 5 or 10g is the usual amount. Also you want to inform the
people signing that they will be removed from the guild as soon as you have all
the names. Other good spot to hunt the signatures is the respective starting
areas for different races. Especially for new players 10g is a big amount and a
nice way to get the game going. You get your signatures and same time you help
other people to get started in the game. Win-win for everyone! But remember to not be rude and spam your guild invite to people without asking first. They'll just end up ingoring you. Always ask first and offer some kind of a reward.
When you have the signatures, turn the charter
in to the guild npc and you have your guild. First thing you need to do when
the new guild is formed, is kick the other characters from your guild. Then go
to the bank and buy yourself as many additional bank tabs that you see
necessary. You can buy more later if you need. With the Cataclysm guild
leveling system, level 1 guild can have up 6 guild bank tabs. You want to
organize bank tabs so that you find without much frustration what you are
looking for.
Same thing
applies to bank guilds that I said about naming your bank alt. You want your
bank guild to meld in. So NO names like “Pile of Gold” or “Auctioneers
anonymous”…
Auction House
You have your
bank alt and your bank guild. Now what? Obviously you need a place to sell your
products. The marketplace of WoW is the auction house, the only real home your
bank alt has. You can access your
faction’s auction house from any capital city; they are all connected. There’s
also neutral auction house that can be used by both Alliance and Horde
characters. It’s run by goblins of Steemwheedle cartel and can be accessed from
Booty Bay, Gadgetstan and Everlook. Neutral ah is the only way to trade items
between factions.
Auction house is
simple to use. You can search things from different categories. All products
can have two different prices, bid price and buyout price. Bid price means that
person bids that amount and unless someone bids more before the auction time
runs out, he or she wins the item. Buyout is the more common method where you
can pay the buyout price and have the item instantly in your mailbox. Items can
be listed to auction house with both bid and buyout price or with just bid
price. We will discuss the fine art of item pricing some other time.
When posting an
auction, you can post it for 12h, 24h or 48h duration. Items have a deposit
price that is higher the longer the auction is. When items sell, 5% of the
selling price is reduced the price. This is called ah-cut. Basically it’s a
method for Blizzard to control the amount of gold in the game and reduce inflation.
Faction based auction houses have 5% cut and the neutral auction house has 15% cut
from the selling price and higer deposit costs. So selling things in the neutral ah is always more
expensive. When you think prices for your items, you must always calculate the
ah cut to the price so that you don’t end up selling for a loss.
Anything else? Plese share in the comments. :) Next time I will talk about addons, those nifty little things that are absolytely essential to serious auction house play.
Until next time,
Adel
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