Wowstability

Gold sellers have been bothering the World of Warcraft since the beginning. Now their methods are becoming too annoying, and we just wish they could just leave us alone and stfu.  Most of them are big gold-selling companies spamming in the trade channel or yelling advertisements in Orgrimmar/Stormwind. But recently, there are individuals who try and sell gold themselves using very ingenious ways.

Gold seller companies way to spam:

1. The classic trade channel advertisement. “We love you long time. Visit blablablab.com and use coupon WOW1. $8=1000g, $79=10,000g…”

2. Yelling in cities the same advertisement they have on the trade channel.

3. Spelling out their gold-selling website using dead level 1 bodies in front of the AH.

Individual seller’s way to spam:

Now these sellers are not so obvious at first. They try their best in social engineering to get you to talk to them. I guess their best isn’t good enough because they’re just a pain in the ass. I wonder how hold they are?

1. Spamming in trade channel “I’M QUITTING WOW GIVING AWAY GOLD PST” and when you pm them, they’ll reply with “Do you want to buy away my gold cheaper than buying it from websites?”
2. Whispering you while you play with “Hey, are you busy?”. And of course you think he’s just an honest man on the other side of the computer with honest questions to ask. And when you say “Not really. What’s up?” they reply with “Do you want to buy gold fast? We have 5kg left.” ….

3. Inviting you in a party/raid and spamming their gold advertisements there.

I’m pretty sure there are other ingenious ways of torturing us gamers with these gold-selling advertisements. Therefore, I searched for some anti-gold seller addons to finally shut them up:

1. Badboy – this one will auto-report and block gold selling advertisements. It also blocks spam messages in the trade channel. This is very useful if your server likes spamming “lfg” or “lol”.
2. Badboy Levels – a plugin for Badboy which blocks whispers from people not in your friend list or in your guild. I think it’s a good idea to have this while leveling, so you don’t get bothered a lot by strangers. Otherwise, this could be a hindrance if you’re doing PUGs.
3. Bugmenot – this addon can be configured to autoreject party/raid/guild/duel invites if they’re not your friends/guildmates.  As the name of the addon says, this keeps buggers from destroying your precious playtime.

The arrow means you go and jump to the waters then DIE

I have two bank alts, one is a tauren and one an orc. Running to Thunderbluff and Orgrimmar does take a lot of time. With a bit of bad luck, you die along the way as well. Luckily, I found the quickest way to make a bank alt for Horde, but you have to be either an orc or a troll.

It wasn’t actually me who figured this out. In creating another alt, I saw this orc running to the mountain. He jumped down to the water, I followed, and we both died to the crabs. We became ghosts but we were now in Ratchet. He talked to the spirit healer and got resurrected and I followed his lead. He went to the bank where the goblins are at, got invited to a guild, and there he was organizing his guild, I guess.

Then I saw the flight master with the green exclamation point on top of his head. I clicked him and immediately there was a flight path going to Orgrimmar even though I haven’t talked to the flight master in Orgrimmar (obviously). The flight costs 1 silver and 20 copper but I didn’t have enough money at that time. I logged out, got a bit of money from my other character, and sent it to my alt. There I was, flying to Orgrimmar with my new bank alt toon who can also use the AH

Sorry Alliance, all I know is humans are the best to use as bank alt because they’re closest to Storm Wind. I don’t think there’s a cool short cut like the one I described above. Let me know so I’ll post it too.

Herbalism bags is a barely touched market. I was searching for one since I needed it for my alt w/ herbalism. After several days of searching, finally I get to see someone post Mycah’s Botanical Bag, which is a herbalism bag from the BC. It’s a 28 slot herbalism bag so it’s not so bad but the price is – 250 gold!

Two herbalism bags are worth crafting for profit:

1. Mycah’s Botanical Bag (28 Slot Herbalism Bag)

Total Mats (If created by a Mooncloth Specialist):

• 36 Netherweave Cloth
• 4 Arcane Dust
• 20 Mote of Life (2 Primal Life)
• 20 Mote of Water (2 Primal Water)
• 2 Fel Lotus

Selling Price: 250 gold

The only problem with this bag is the required revered reputation from the Sporeggar. The recipe, Pattern: Mycah’s Botanical Bag, can be purchased from the Sporeggar Quartermaster. FYI, I heard it’s a pain to grind for Sporeggar rep, that’s why this bag can sell for 250 gold.

2.  Emerald Bag (32 Slot Herbalism Bag)

Emerald Bag is the WOTLK version of herbalism bag.

Total Mats (If made by a Mooncloth Specialist):

• 20 Frostweave
• 4 Infinite Dust
• 4 Eternal Life
• 6 Frost Lotus

Pattern: Emerald Bag requires a revered reputation from the Kalu’ak, which isn’t very hard because you can do Kalu’ak dailies for reputation.

Selling price: 650 GOLD!

You can save a lot if you ask a Mooncloth specialist to craft the moonshroud for you and just give him a tip. If you are a Mooncloth specialist, then even better!

A new loot system is on the rise. It’s called GDKP or Gold-DKP. Instead of using DKP to purchase items, gold is used. For instance, in a 10 man raid, the boss dies and the loot is bid upon by players in their raid spec by whispering the loot master their bid. Whoever has the highest bid gets the item. If no one bids on main spec, then bids are for off spec before it gets disenchanted. By the end of the raid, the loot master divides the pot by 10 (some say by 11 for the guild bank, if you’re running with guildies), and distributes them among all the players. Sounds cool? Let’s look at the pros and cons.

Pros

• Those who have been looking for this 1 item can finally get it! Just spend gold rather than raid for that item every week and fail on your roll.
• Already uber geared but lazy to farm and play the AH? Gold DKP raids are for you. Have fun raiding with your friends while you earn some moolah.
• For those alts with low gear but have a ton of gold, gearing up can’t be easier than this!

Cons

• Gold DKP leaders should have a good reputation. I wouldn’t join a gold DKP group with a shady leader. Sounds like trouble, QQ, and gold ninjas to me if the leaders don’t have good rep.
• Leaders have to balance how many undergeared people can join in. You can’t have many fresh 80s even though their pockets are deep.
• Some say this encourages buying gold. But then again, don’t tell me the mechano-hog and the tundra mammoth doesn’t.

Skill is still a must in a GDKP raid. Even if you have tons of gold but you’re lying dead 5 seconds after the encounter, you’re as useless as a bent paper clip. Kick these people out!

An addon that helps manage the gold in a GDKP raid is GoldRaidManager. Quoting its description:

Helps raid leaders running gold pugs (gdkp). Sets minimum bid/raise for loots, do countdown, tracks and announces gold pot for each boss and the whole gold pot, and calculates and announces the gold split.

This 100% player devised concept looks really awesome. This gives a chance for those who love raiding to earn gold or get that piece of equipment you’ve always wanted for. And for those who have gold to spare, this is a chance to finally use it!

One line you will always see in the trade channel is this: “WTB port to DAL 10g”

Even though the hearth cd was already reduced to 30 minutes, people still prefer to pay for portals instead of riding the zeppelin and flying to Dalaran. It is a very long route after all. Add to that the low level characters who wants to see where the big boys hang out. The market on mage portals never runs out.

A reader sent me the picture above of one of his unusual days in WoW. A player whispered him and asked if he could be ported to Dalaran. He made a portal and the player suddenly ported without paying a tip. My reader let the situation go as whispering curses and flames won’t do any good. Besides, the reagent for a portal costs just a few silver anyway. The next day, he receives this letter from the guy he ported, with an Obsidian Hatchling attached to the mail! The pet is purchasable at 50 gold and sometimes sold at the AH for 100g. I guess the player got so happy he got to see Dalaran he sent 50 gold worth of tip.

A helpful addon for mages who want to sell portal services would be Broker Portals. Instead of putting portal spells on your action bar, it will attach itself to the minimap.

So mages, at your idle time, do not ignore people willing to buy portal. Who knows how much tip they will give you?

Tanks, rejoice! Because your breed is so rare, selling your service is starting to become a profession! Some dpsers are getting tired of waiting a long time for the dungeon to pop up. They would rather PAY for a tank to group with them, because when a tank joins your group, it’s almost an instant queue.

On the picture to the left, it says “LF TANK PAYING FOR RANDOMS (paying per badge)”. I do not know how much the group is paying per badge, but I have a friend who lent his tanking skills because a group was willing to pay 60 gold per dungeon. Flat rate for tanking skills pays better, he said. In around a week, he earned an extra 5k gold. Not Bad!

In addition to your badges and 13 gold per dungeon earned, you have a group of people paying for your services. If you no longer need badges for anything, you could use that to buy epic gems and sell those instead.

Tanks skills are now becoming a commodity. It’s not so far until I see someone advertising their tanking skill, their gear score, and their price in the trade channel. Selling yourself in the trade channel may make you look like a prostitute, but the dpsers who can’t get a dungeon running are the desperate ones. For those tank readers out there, how bout try advertising your tank skills? I’m thinking somewhere in the lines of:

“Selling tanking services for 60g a run, 5k GS, 43khp”