WoW gold making 101: An introduction to The System

You've enjoyed the earlier light hearted posts, maybe you've had a laugh or two. And that's good. It's one of the purposes of this blog -- to brighten your day a little.

If I were to pick a motto for this blog, it would be something along the lines of "When fail is strong, come over for a giggle in the Dalaran gardens. I have cookies." And that kind of posts will keep rolling shortly. There are some delicious cookies baking...

However, now is time for something different. Read on, and let me know what do you think about it.

I'm sure many people have leveled Inscription when it was first introduced. I've seen it happen on my server.

And many have built a nice fortune, some say around 30K, some say a bit more, in the "back in the good ol' days." How many are still making good money from it today?

After the initial rush was over, most scribe pioneers spent their 30K on mounts, pets and early Naxx/Ulduar BoE epics, and now are seen crying in trade that Inscription is no longer "the" money maker it once was.

Gevlon from Greedy Goblin saw the opportunity, like everyone else, and grabbed it with both hands. But he went a step further than most. When others craft 100 glyphs and sell maybe 40 - 50 a week, he crafts hundreds of glyphs every other day and sells maybe 4000 a week. He is now at the gold cap (200K), and using this gold to fund high end raiding progression. Yet he doesn't spend more than an hour a week by the AH.

So how he does it? Apart from being a goblin, what makes "his" Inscription profitable where many others fail?

What he did was build a system. And by applying this system he is simply using his gold to make more gold, instead of trading time - a finite resource - for gold.

This is the beauty of a system. It is mostly automated and scales with your buying power, not with the time you put into it.

If I would have to pick 4 words that are the key to wealth, these would be: system, automation, scalability and bulk.

I've had a chance, and I too have grabbed it with both hands. My chance was to study with the master, to pick his brains and ask questions, and learn.

In the gold making 101 series I will be attempting to revealing what I learned in baby steps that anyone can read and follow. You too can learn the system he talks about in his blog, the system he has shown and taught me.

You will not find here tips like "you'll have to craft xxx or yyy because it sells for 3K". This is largely server dependent, and patch dependent. Today's hot seller may be tomorrow's dull that nobody buys.

What you will find in the gold making 101 series is a system that you can easily apply to your server, to the current patch, to any profession and find your own money makers, over and over again.

You may not reach the gold cap, not everybody is a goblin and not everyone needs or wants to reach that, but I can guarantee you will have enough money to have your gear repaired, gemmed and enchanted properly and a bit of a safe deposit for rainy days, without ever needing to go "grind those elementals" ever again.

This may sound like a bold statement, but bear with me for a while, and I will attempt to fulfill it to the best of my abilities.

With this being said, let's start with some basics.

What you need:

- Willingness to install a few addons. The key of a truly useful system is automation. While you will be able to do everything by hand, it will be extremely dull and time consuming. I will tell you which addons I use, where I got them, and exactly how I have them configured.

- A reasonably leveled crafting profession. While you won't need a maxed out profession for this system to work, you won't be able to make most of the good money makers. You could work your way around this by teaming with a high level crafter, for a share of the profits.

- Some start up capital. You will need to buy some materials, ingredients for the items you're going to craft. With a system, your income is proportional to the amount of gold you put into it. I started with 100G capital. In less than a week, by reinvesting most of the profits, I've raised this to 3K worth of materials, and 3K worth of goods listed or ready to be listed in the AH.

- Even more willingness: to spend around 30 minutes by the AH, and around 30 minutes crafting. Per week, not daily.

- A bit of discipline, and ability to follow a basic set of rules.

That's all there is to it, really.

In the next installment of the series we'll be discussing the addons I use for this system, and the exact way I have them configured. We'll then move to describing the system itself, and the steps you can take to apply it to your own profession. In the last installment I will conclude with some tips that, while not strictly needed, can easily add 10% on the top of the profits you could make.

Enjoy the ride.

The 10 commandments of Wow

1) If you play WoW 10+ hours a day you have no life. If you play less, you suck.

2) If you grind at least 100 elementals a day you have no life. If you don't grind you have no money, thus you suck.

3) If you PvP in arena and have a high rating you have no life. If you don't you suck.

4) If you raid Ulduar hard modes at least 4 days a week you have no life. If you don't you suck.

5) If you own a Mammoth mount you have no life (see #2). If you don't, you suck (see #2 again).

6) If you run low level "friends" through Deadmines you have no life. If you don't, you suck.

7) If you have a pretty outfit and idle in Stormwind for hours so others can admire your e-peen you have no life (bonus points if you also own a Mammoth mount). If you don't, you suck.

8) If you watch the AH like a hawk and have 10K+ gold on your level 10 main, you have no life. If you don't, you suck.

9) If on top of your WoW play time you also read WoW related websites, you have no life (bonus points if you have your own blog). If you don't, you suck.

10) If you have the latest best-in-slot epics, you have no life. If you still wear your quest greens/blues one minute after you hit 80, you suck.

11) If you are better than me, you have no life. If you are not, you suck.

Note: A dear reader just pointed out gracefully ("zomg you newb you wrote 11 comanders, you suck") that I can't count. Never claimed I can. Now move on please.

Thus, after much meditation and deep analysis, we can conclude without doubt WoW players are of two species: suckers, and no lifers.

Which one are you?

The mishaps of a misguided apprentice

Even goblins have basic needs, and Gevlon is no exception.

After last night's exhausting training session, he suddenly felt the urge to quench his thirst. Now, trying play the nice apprentice I did what every good student should: offer to bring the thirsty master a drink. With the mind still full of numbers guess I didn't pay much attention to the whole mixing process, and somehow managed to add one drop too much of that underbelly elixir. Luckily the side effects weren't that terrible. At first.


Over time it only got worse, and the poor goblin had no choice but to hop around the AH laying eggs under the eyes of a terrified mage:


Did you even notice the big sign on the AH door: "No pets allowed?" Me either. Apparently it's related to that incident a while ago that involved a gorilla, a sand worm and a few oozelings. Messy business. They had to replace the entire auctioneer crew. Anyway, back to our poor goblin...

When hunger got unbearable he had to sneak behind a tree and have some juicy grass for dinner, while the Stormwind guards were eyeing him suspiciously. For some reason he no longer trusted my perfectly fine chocolate cookies.

Apparently he found it quite delicious.


Which makes me wonder if it was really the first time he had this kind of food? Maybe a diet rich on veggies is the reasons goblins have green skin?

I can assure you the damage wasn't permanent, to Gevlon at least.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to farm just 200 more elementals before he gets back from wherever he goes when we're not talking business. It was either that or taking the inscription classes. And who would've thought goblins do have some sense of humor?

And so it begins

This morning Gevlon from Greedy Goblin announced Ydraisa as his apprentice to the rest of the world.

This come as no news, having spent the past days emailing back and forth. I was mentally prepared for the flashlights. Several comments on his blog so far, mostly the pat on the back kind. And a troll, of the common species... Gevlon purged it promptly.

I guess that's how Khadgar felt after meeting with the ruling council of Dalaran, while he was heading to Karazhan to become Medivh's only apprentice ever. I am anxious to get this started, yet at the same time wondering how this experiment and public attention will change the young Ydraisa.

So far she had a peaceful life, chasing rabbits during Noble Garden, enjoying the beautiful Northrend scenery and catching a fish or two before going to bed...

... when not causing grief to the horde in the battlegrounds, or purging the Naxxramas abominations through rigteous fire.

This blog is an open book for my friends in Azeroth, as well as you my gentle reader, seeking more, wanting more. It's a book about magic tales and dragons, and about battles of glory. It's a book about friends, and about friends that were lost. It's a book about what you might have become, if you took another path.

And so it begins...