Lately I’ve been back on WoW. The last big raid has been out since Xmas and the last guy was killed in Feb (Arthas, the Lich King). I’ve always been interested in the story. I played a lot when this expansion came out last year just didn’t have the time for the end game and pretty much burned out. Now I’m back with a renewed vigor and a new goal. Money.
A long time ago, I played around with the virtual market. There are 5 ways to make money in the game.
- Through NPCs and quests. Gives a steady stream of money, maybe 300g an hour.
- Through selling loot acquired. Can be a huge amount can be a small amount. Unfocused, maybe 100g an hour, focused maybe closer to the 300g.
- Collection skills. Herbs, ore, leather… all get a decent price on the market. Maybe closer to 500g, if you get lucky.
- Buy low, sell high. This is the riskiest one as you assume you know that an item is underpriced. Plus you need money for the initial investment. You could make 50g like you can make 10,000g.
- Tradeskills. It seems simple enough, just make something and sell it. If you collect the base materials, no cost to you right? Well, there’s the time cost which is not negligible. I’m focusing on this particular point lately.
I made the following
spreadsheet to help me along. First page are the base materials and their market cost. Each other page is a tradeskill and the more popular items I can make with it. I then breakdown the cost of making the item and the potential sale price. Items that have multiple steps I break down further for even more savings (Jewelcrafting is one). I started this week (Sunday) filling in the chart and slowly have been moving my way through it. I guess I make about 1000g a day from it right now as I’m still trying to figure out the optimal way to move forward. Not to mention that my enchanter is missing a lot of skills and I don’t have an Inscriber.
A bit more breakdown if you will for the tradeskills and their potentials:
- Alchemy: can make potions for some minimal profits. you need to get the base mats yourself though. Can transmute 1 time per day, which turns out to be around 100g profit.
- Enchanting: can make scrolls with enchants that sell for a decent profit, if you buy the base materials at a good price. Less about volume, more about profit.
- Engineering: other than 2 items, I can’t figure out how to make money here as most items can only be used by the creator…
- Jewelcrafting: You cut lower end jewels to something more valuable. There is some money here, though not trucks of it. Combines really well with Alchemy transmutes. 1 transmute + 1jc = 150g. 9 transmutes + 1jc = 1200g.
- Inscription: Works on the principles of volume. Possibly the biggest money maker if you play your cards right.
- Leatherworking: Tough one as I don’t have a high level one. There is potential for money though.
- Tailoring: Pretty close to leatherworking in terms of profits. You can make bags for a decent turnover but that only brings in about 100g a day.
I’m thinking of making more alchemists to make more money and get an inscriber too. Though alchemy would only give me ~150g more a day (and therefore take 15 days to recoup training costs), there are long term benefits to it. Inscription is one that requires a lot of hands on work… we’ll see!
Man I love analytical work.
Leo's Life 