Guild wars 2 pre orders coming soon!

As the title states, you will be able to pre order your copy of guild wars 2 very soon. The official date for it is april 10th which will include access to any and all weekend beta tests that they do between then and release. And depending on which package you buy, can include tons of nifty things as expected.

Click here to read the whole story.

This is a pretty big deal because it means that the game is damned near ready to be done. My guess is early fall but don’t quote me on that one. And as soon as it is released, this blog will be up and running full speed once again. I’ll be back to providing everyone with new and creative ways to make some extra cash in their MMO of choice. As I’ve said countless times before, even though the game and names are all different, the people are not.

Also GW 2 will introduce a few very interesting dynamics to the standard auction house method of making money. One of those that has been “semi” confirmed is that there will be account wide storage. No more need for a devoted guild bank for all of your dedicated crafters.

In addition to that there will be an AH that allows you to post what you are BUYING instead of what you are selling and people can take your bid, you lose your money and get the items. So potentially, you can buy from the normal AH and then walk right down the road and sell that to somebody else for a profit.

Lastly there is the absence of gathering professions in the traditional sense. You won’t need a dedicated miner or skinner because every character is able to gather everything by default which will make farming your initial capital much easier.

Also while I will definitely will be playing with Stokpile as my primary banker, my main will be based on my original guild wars 1 character. I am also considering a different name for my personal guild. I want it to be something short and interesting in that it sounds like it may be a reference to something, but is inherently meaningless. Here is the list of current candidates:

Lunch money
Madam Dorothy
March of penguins
Rose green
Wednesday yesterday
Bubblegum kisses

So to wrap all of this up, an MMO that is sure to shake up the entire genre is coming out quite soon and will provide all of you wonderful AH barons a new challenge. What challenge is that? Reach the gold cap before I do. Ha!

Why I disappeared

Aloha all. I wanted to write to you all today and apologize for my sudden disappearance. I’m sure this may come as too little to late, but I feel that I should regardless. The short and simple answer is that shit happens and I didn’t have the time. Ok that’s a horrible reason I’ll admit, so let me give you a bit more details as to how that came about.

For quite some time I have been looking for a regular job in web design, which is what I spent X thousand dollars on an education for. After a while I still hadn’t found one so when my best friend says “Hey I’m moving out to Illinois while my girl finishes college, want to come with and start up a web business?” I immediately said hell yes. No questions asked.

That’s pretty much the story of my life right there, barely any planning or reason for whatever I do other than “it seemed like a good idea at the time.” After packing up we made the 15ish hour long drive out there and got set up. Unfortunately working freelance in the mid-west isn’t so easy. Granted it isn’t easy anywhere, but that’s another debate.

The simple fact is that I was desperate to leave my current situation and was borderline on taking a job in the all American fast food industry if that would get me out. So I took the first opportunity to get out and it worked out, at least a little. We get our first job in the business shortly after getting there from a friend of a friend.

It was a nightmare.

I can go on for hours ranting on about how brain damaged this person was (and I have) but I’ll spare you. The short version is they could barely use a computer and were telling me how to do my job at every turn. *stabby stabby stabby!* But we managed to get it done and find more contracts here and there. Meanwhile almost all of my time is dedicated to either drinking heavily or trying to find new clients. Or both, ya know whichever.

I stopped writing because first I stopped gaming for the most part. I was rich in Rift and was getting bored of the game. Although it’s more accurate to say that my mind was focused on work, creating new designs, learning new tricks etc.

Once things finally calmed down and I was financially stable about a year had already passed. At that point I just said fuck it and ignored the AH game and the blog (therefore you) all together. I was just thinking (very little at all) that at this point why bother? In the end, all of my writing and serious gaming had completely fallen by the wayside until just recently.

For all of you who only read for the tips on making the MMO moneys don’t worry that you’ve missed out on many great secrets, you haven’t. I’ve told you everything you need to know, the rest is up to you. And for those who actually read my blog for entertainment or because you just enjoyed my writing, I apologize. Yes I actually feel bad about not writing and falling out of the bloging thing.

However I do intend to get back to writing, and very soon at that, but it will take on a slightly different form. Mostly, I’m waiting for Guild Wars 2 to be released which will likely be the last MMO I intend to play for quite some time. With the planning of a reverse auction house, I am extremely interested in how well I will fare. For those of you that don’t know, what that means is that you can list what you have for sale AND what you want to buy. Very cool stuff. But I digress.

I don’t mean to turn this entry into something that belongs on a live journal post, but I owe an explanation if nothing else. Even if it is two years too late. Sorry about that. But fear not, Guild Wars 2 is currently in closed beta and, if all goes well, it will be in an open beta before spring time. Until then I’ll be working on my writing ability and hopefully get a job as a writer for one of the many fine sites out there on the interwebs.

Thanks for stopping by.

Taking a loss

As to be expected, I've taken a significant loss in a number of things that I've tried to sell. Not because of forgetting to do my homework, I've learned the hard way not to forget that part. I took a loss because I have very little to base my guess work on. And it wasn't until much later on that I discovered a few clues that would suggest avoiding a certain item. That being said, let me give you the full list of things that I have not sold or sold very few of so far. Anything that has sold came with a monetary cost that was not made back from sales to date.

Ornate steel choker
Gold gorget
Gold chain
Night iron gauntlets
Fine leather leggings
Plaited cinerium ring
Shining sapphire ring
Heartless ring
Reinforced leather helm
Reinforced leather belt

Each of the above items cost me two things. First is the obvious monetary investment it took to craft them. Sure I can RB them to try and recoup it, but that would be such a small fraction of the final cost that it's not even worth taking into account. I also don't have a toon that can use them so that is also not relevant. The second thing that I took a loss on was the tokens it cost to learn the recipe itself. That means time which is infinitely more valuable than the gold.

Each recipe took at least two daily of full dailys to get enough tokens for which could have been spent more wisely on something else that might (or might not) have sold. Like I always say, time is the most important thing you can invest because you cannot get more and cannot regain what you have lost.

Bear in mind though I am in no way saying that the professions that make these things are worthless themselves, far from it. I am only pointing out a few things that you should be avoiding unless you have nothing else better to spend your tokens on and have some decent cash that you can afford to throw in the gutter. While it is true that this can happen with anything on your shard, these are a few items that I know for a fact are not working out on mine and are very likely the same on yours.

As time goes on and I continue to experiment with different things to craft and sell I'll be writing more and more entries like this I'm sure. Once again there is little to no way to base your markets on. That is yet another reason that reading fine blogs such as mine is important even if you're already well off, you never know when a big loss is waiting around the corner. And the flip side of course is true, you never know if there's a fortune waiting right under your nose until somebody points it out to you. That's what I'm here for after all, to enlighten and to entertain.

I'm still looking for the markets that have a high rate of consistent sales because that's where you need to be if you want to get rich anytime this century. So far the closest I've found is bags, but their profit margins are so low it's still going to take a while with them. Then there is the "death and taxes" profession of rune crafting. I refer to it as such because the only two thing you can't avoid in life are death and taxes. Any time you get a new piece of gear you can't avoid heading to a RC to add some shine to it. But with the campers that farm for free that isn't an option either. So here's to searching!


Thanks for stopping by!

For those who farm

Although I'm against farming I still feel it's wise to mention it from time to time. Today I'm going to give a few pointers on farming spots, how to do them, what to expect, and when it's a good idea. That's right, a good idea to farm. However seeing as how I'm not the most adept or experienced farmer out there there could easily be better spots than the ones I've mentioned.

The farming locations that I'll cover are the ones that I've found merely by questing and wound up spending more time gathering than killing. In other words all of the farm spots tend to have a lot of nodes in a tight area. Here's my recommendations based on material type along with any note worthy points on it.


Titanium.
Most people will tell you to go to the level 50 zones if you want to farm this and of course that's not a good idea. When it comes to farming you never EVER go to where "everybody" says to go unless that's your only option. That's because obviously there's a lot of competition for spawn points. The best place that I've found is the south east portion of the drought lands. Not many people quest in there and the dominate node for the zone is cobalt. However in this higher level section you'll find oodles and oodles of titanium spawn points. Bear in mind though that there are a handful that spawn underground and aren't worth going for usually.

Fun note on this though. If you port to phoenix rise there can be a node spawn directly behind you and if you go to fortune's shore there can be one next to the neutral gang mobs in town as well just a short run to the west.


Carmintium.
The easiest route to farm this that I've found is along side the road between exile's den and white fall tavern. Just run your circle starting at exile's on the left side of the road until you get to white fall and then go back on the other side. There is also a cave that has 3-5 spawn points but is also loaded up with mobs.

If you don't see a node right outside that usually means that there won't be any inside either. But if you have great aoe and won't get killed it might be worth your while to look. There is a large number of spawns in stillmoor in the fields around the citadel, but you'll have to dodge countless mobs with a few elites mixed in so this is definitely not a good place to farm effectively.


Spellspun silk.
This is something that you'll only want to really farm if you can solo aoe it all. It seems that the only really viable option for this is the undead town at the very southern end of stillmoor. Be mindful of the few elites that sit by the walls though or you could be in trouble.


Cobalt.
Right in the middle of the northern portion of drought lands is the prime spot for this. Everywhere that has a little centaur camp is likely to have either this or gold hidden away. Anywhere that you see a few stone mountain pillar things is where you're going to find a node. Basically just look for big rocks sticking up and you'll get what you're after.


Chromite.
This route is almost the same as the one for carmintium, just in a different zone. You start out in perspice and follow the left side of the road north. Follow it all the way up to the last Guardian camp and then turn around. In each of the little pits with the scaffolding or tree stumps is where you're going to find the nodes you want.


Exotic hide.
There are two different spots that I've found for this. One is right outside of exile's den to the east. You'll find a bunch of tigers that hang around the sides of the road that you usually pass by entirely. They're spread out enough that it's easy to go one at a time and close enough together that you can aoe them if you can. The other spot is a little east of whitefall with the same situation, lots of tigers packed together nicely.


Orichilum.
There is actually only one route that I know of that won't take an hour to get 10 ore together. The only down side to it is that if you aren't a defiant it's not practical for you at all. You leave right out the front gates of meridian and make a right. Follow the mountains along the coast until you're think you're going to enter the desert. Right in the corner are a few elites and some wrecked boats which is where three nodes can spawn.

The elites can be solo'd by any pet class or tank and for everyone else they are very easy to avoid. After you check those spots head out into the lake and you'll find a buried treasure chest if you haven't already along with several other spawn points and elites to avoid. Aside from this spot your only other options are dungeons and the citadel in stillmoor with a ton of mobs and elites that cannot be avoided.


Thanks for stopping by!

Random rift thoughts 2

Aloha all! I'm here with another collection of random thoughts to help you make money in rift. As always just a few quick tips that only need a little explanation on what I'm talking about. I try to do more than just provide you with original content each day after all. I do my best to make sure that it is not only quality content, but also that there is a lot of it.

Enjoy!


1. Soulbind/Exotic leather belts.
This is a vendor bought recipe that takes 40ish tokens to get. To craft them it only takes 1 soulbind leather (2-5g on my shard) and an item sold form the OF vendor. This is noteworthy because if you're like me and RB tons of gear to get materials for insanely cheap this is the route to take. Before I discovered this I was crafting the boot which takes two pieces of leather to craft and this just increased my profit margins by 50% on it's own.

However for those of you who don't have OF on your rune crafter this is going to be a problem. I'd recommend making an alt just to be your RB workhorse in all honesty. Get their RC skill up to the 250s range and their OF up to the same just so that you can craft tons of greens and RB them on the spot. With only 6 items fitting in a mail to yourself this will save a ton on postage and loads of time shuffling junk around.


2. Tell the other faction you're doing crafting rifts.
Now I haven't tried this personally, but I have a feeling it will pay off well. Roll an alt on the opposite faction's side and walk them to their main town. When you or another group are starting to do crafting rifts log onto them and spam that they're going on for a few minutes to get more people to join in from there. You just might get a few extra lures popped out of it. The other reason that I'm thinking this is a good idea is that you just might get the same treatment in turn.

An MMO is a social game filled with oodles of social and/or casual people and this is the sort of thing that they get into. Friendly people helping other friendly people. So by doing this you can get your own returned favor of announcements when there's about to be 30+ crafting rifts going off which can be nice if you don't have the time or don't want to bother leaving an alt in the middle of nowhere to check.


3. Stokpile catalysts and eternal dust on Wednesday
As you know, all weekly resets happen on Wednesday and this includes crafting weekly quests. These are the quests that reward you with the crafting rift lures and it's very common to see several full raids doing these several times on your average Wednesday. This means that all of a sudden tons of minor catalysts, eternal planar dust, and assorted max level crafting materials have been introduced into the system. And there will be a ton of them.

When any large floods of supply come in the prices of them will always drop down by a noticeable amount. Because of that each week when the crafting lures are reset the prices of all of those will drop down and makes for a great opportunity for you to stokpile them all. The same is also true of other materials like carmintium and soul leather. When people get a small hand full of random materials that they're not going to use they tend to put it up on AH for a serious undercut. So in addition to getting a shot at great deals on rare mats you can do the same with the more common ones as well.


Thanks for stopping by!

The 40 plat price cap

It seems that I'm always going on about how you need to find the perfect price point for your markets on your server. It's of utmost importance to maximizing your profits to balance rate of sales with profit and I think I've found mine for rift. And that number is 40 platinum for everything, it's a sweeping generalization of prices sure but it seems to fit the bill, no pun intended. Naturally there isn't anything in game that you can auction for 40 platinum that isn't purple so that's what I'm going to be focusing on today. Of course should anybody be aware of a blue item that they can sell for that much I'd be thrilled to know!

The first epic that I crafted was a black iron hatchet, an epic 1h axe for warriors. It began to sell steadily once prices were at an acceptable point for me to list them, it began to sell consistently. I started listing them at 26 platinum which is about a 6p profit and over time slowly raised the price bit by bit as each one sold. However once I reached a 40 platinum price tag they just stopped selling. When something stops selling entirely, you'd think that something has changed.

It might be a patch, a hotfix, or just the community's view on the targeted class in general, but in this case the only thing that had changed was my price tag. I dropped the price back down to 38 and voila, they start selling regularly again. So 195% ish of the material cost is the ideal pricing point for this item.

Strange sure, but one case doesn't make a pattern.

The next epic I started to sell was the flesh reaper, this one is a bit more expensive to craft at about 28 platinum in materials. So I started to list these at 50 platinum with a fancy augment. Not a single sale. Ok so maybe 50 is a bit too much for an entry level epic and I drop the price to 45 platinum. A week later and I finally get a sale. Woohoo! So I craft another and list it back at 45 and sell another but at the same slow pace.

I get undercut by a few gold and I drop the price down to 39.55 platinum. Two days later it sold and I crafted another one to list for the same price. I sold yet another that week. The other one either sold or expired by the time I went to list another and I put it back up for 45 to see what happens. What happened was the exact same thing!

Ok so I'm two for two on selling things under 40 platinum better than higher prices, that is until I mention Martyr's fist and faith forged spaulders. Both sexy cleric purple gear, both cost roughly 25ish platinum to craft. And yes, both take forever and a day to sell with a 41+ platinum price tag.

So what's the deal here? Obviously people are willing to pay top dollar for crafted epics, but not many are. That part is easy to explain and I've covered it a few times so far, there just isn't a lot of money in the world period. There's a lot of quests and vendor bait but there's a lot of gold sinks as well so not many people can afford that.

The real question here is why 40? What makes this the magic number? Yes 39.99 is not particularly different than 40, but that bit of pricing psychology has been proven to be very effective for ages now. So I will ask again: what makes 40 platinum so special and not 45? Why not 100 platinum? We shall see.


Thanks for stopping by!

Don't compete with yourself

Another entry listed over at wowecon today. This one is on the subject of pricing once again and why you should leave a large and noticeable gap in price between the top end items and those that are second best. Here's the first part.

"Today's entry is on the general subject of pricing and the specific topic of being your own worst enemy on the AH. Let's say you have three different things to sell, A, B, and C. A is for max level players with a lot to spend, B is for people that are almost at the level cap and C is for those that have just hit the level cap. As expected, you'll want to price item A rather high as it's for people that have money to spend and it will probably last them long enough. However Items A and B are very close in level range, stats, and estimated length of use.

We all know that there is a solid market for leveling gear even when you're close to finished. That's because sometimes people level fast or skip areas or otherwise do things that don't upgrade their gear at the same rate as their level. So they might actually need to buy some gear so the last few levels aren't a nightmare. But there is also the other side that figures that it's not worth the money since it'll be replaced soon anyways. But with these two different items, one for near cap and one entry level gear, they're both going to be sold to the same person.

This is where the pricing gets tricky."


Click here to read the whole entry.

Thanks for stopping by!