My Specifics

NOTE: I have officially been (re) inducted into the warcraft econ hall of fame. You can check out their interview with me here.

I get a lot of people asking me either in email (address is over yonder -->) or by rolling a lvl 1 on my server to chat. So today I'll answer, at least in part, these questions with a bit more detail than I typically give. After all it's hard to give the same 3 paragraph answer to the same question multiple times. That and wow needs a spell checker because my typing is fail.


Q: How much do you actually stokpile, Stokpile? (In reference to obscure materials)

A: Absolutely all of them. And unless I'm flooding the bags of the associated crafter I don't stop buying anything that's in my price range. If I won't pay more than 10g for something and I see a stack up for 9g 99s 99c I'm going to buy it. If you want a really good explanation of how much I stokpile, read the entry with the obvious title How much to stokpile.


Q: How often and/or when do you post auctions?

A: First my preferred times to do a cancel/post on all of my bankers is at 11am and 11pm server time. I catch most of the afternoon and post raid crowds at these times so I try to hit them when I can, but I'm not always able to due to work and sleep and binge drinking. That being said, I like to change them up to something completely random as much as I'm able to while still being in the general time frame. Hell sometimes I only list once a day, life can be funny that way sometimes.

Also if I happen to have 5 minutes to kill, I'll hop onto a totally random banker and do a cancel/post on them. Sometimes I'll just post the spares that I have in the bag and not cancel anything. If I'm doing heroics as DPS I'll cancel and post while I wait for the que to come up as well. Basically if there's a time frame where I have nothing pressing to do and have no work that I can accomplish in those few minutes I'll post some auctions.

Like an old store manager once told me while I was working at a deli when I was 19, "If you've got time to lean you've got time to clean." In other words if you have the time to pretend to look awesome and idle in front of the bank, you've got time to do some auctions. Wasted time is wasted money.


Q: ...comparing my AH methods to my RL personality.

A: Ok not really a question I get asked often, but worth while to include. I've spoken briefly before about personality types and how they effect your AH game. When you're able to identify these things on a conscious level you can work to strengthen them if they're helpful or lessen/remove them if they are not.

And by "on a conscious level" I mean that you can actually say it out loud and not feel silly because you are fully aware that it is fact. IRL I spend my dollars mostly the same as I spend my gold, wisely. If I don't need something then I don't get it unless I'm quite well off at the time. If a good amount of money happens to come in I'll treat myself to going out to a fancy sushi restaurant. The same goes for mechano hogs and vial of the sands for two toons. For the AH I try to price things at a reasonable level while still trying to get as much profit as I can both in game and irl.


Q: How much you make on an average day from (market name)?

A: I can't really give any exact figures because I only tally things up once a week. But I can give a rough estimate for a few markets. For gems I make about 10-16k per day. It depends on the competition campers and the day of the week. Enchanting makes 8-12 a day when combined with smithing which might be 1-3k per day extra. Smithing mostly depends on if I sell any pvp gear that day. Engineering gets me a bit under 1k per day with the occasional 4k day when a lot of mini pets happen to sell.


Q: What were things like when you first started playing the AH game?

A: I started working the AH with about 5k in gold and a handful of raw gems in my bank. At the beginning it was mostly selling cut rare gems in wrath as my first serious market. I had a lot of the cuts already from the dailys so I'd just buy some ore to prospect or cheap gems and cut them. I was a casual seller for a long time until I had all of the expensive boe tank gear I was saving for. Then I got into glyphs after reading gevlon's blog on the inscription business and it was all downhill from there. I got into enchanting and BS and next and then that led to branching out into everything I am into today one after another.


That should cover most of the common questions that I get asked. If there's any other random factoids you're curious about just post a comment and I'll do my best to answer them.

Thanks for stopping by!