Interesting experience tonight at the ah. One of the… no, *the* main gold farmer/rip off auctioneer was being his usual self in the trade channel… that is, smarmy, wise-cracking, getting attacked by just about everyone because of his insane prices, the usual guy popping in “defending” the auctioneer to gain a few brownie points. It was all deja vu. I left within 5 minutes, but not before someone casually mentioned something about the 72k gold he had.

Now, in WoW, 72k gold, especially if it’s one server, is an insane amount. This guy, not me plays with the big boys. I make my money by scouting good deals in a short amount of time and then coming back later. This guy, and it sounds like he is a farmer, accrues items, puts them up for insane prices, and hopes they sell. Even if it’s true he has that much gold, some of it must sell. What that means to me is that there are those who buy gold (because if you earn it, you surely know the prices are too high to justify forking over hard earned cash), and they use that bought, easily obtained gold to buy outrageously priced items because a) they know no better (they also likely have bought their account or are not the most skilled players), or b) bought money means less to them: they can always buy more.

I’m sure that those people exist. In fact, if you feel like tapping another market, you could try that technique if someone isn’t already doing it. Well, I’ve been on several servers and on the popular ones, usually there is always someone like that. In fact, due to my frequent advertising in the trade channels, I have been accused of that very often as well… and despite my being innocent (of that at least), some people are bent on thinking you are a crook no matter what, if you have a lot of money. To those people, there’s no way you could have come by it legally or legitimately. Obviously you can’t please ‘em all.

So what did the experience teach me? I’ve seen conversations like that before. That there are a multitude of ways to make money. Mine’s only one of them, and probably not the *most* profitable. However, I can pretty much guarantee mine and heck, I’m happy being able to buy whatever I want, whenever I want, and give away thousands if I want. So he can give away thousands more, I don’t nor even want to work like that. I guess there’s a profitable place for people with consciences too. Sure sounds like I’m rationalizing doesn’t it.

Tip o’ the day:
Take a risk. If there’s something I’ve learned, you have to take risks or you don’t profit. Educated risks, risks where you reasonably know you *should* come out ahead, and even if you made a mistake, there lies the chance to learn something.

Buy something using a large percentage of your money. If you have tons of it already (and would you be reading this if you did?), buy something that costs more than you’d usually spend on an item. If you have a little money, buy something “out of your league” using most of it. In WoW, there are green “magic” items, rare “blue” items, and purple “epic” items on the auction house. There are higher categories too, but so far, the game doesn’t allow those to be sold. Using what you have, I want you to at least buy an item you find that’s in a slightly higher category that you usually look in. If you have, say 7 or 8 gold saved up in WoW, buy a blue item.

Now, to search for those items, do it by category, not all at once. Look for a deal in every category starting with weapons. Then armor, then so on down the line. Search only for rare items. Do the same thing no matter how little money you have. Look for a deal, spend most of your money, and see if you can make a profit. Once again, an “obvious” deal is when two or more people have relatively the same item up and one of those people has it up for significantly higher. You buy up the low priced, go and fetch it, and put it back up still lower than the other persons, usually by about 10%.

When you get to know the AH and items, you’ll be able to find deals without others having things up before hand. You’ll automatically know that that one thing should not be sold that low, buy it, and put it up for slightly higher. You could do the insane gold farmer thing and put it up for a ridiculous price but it’s more likely you’ll be waiting a *long* time before someone buys it, if ever. Make your money and move on. Take a risk with a large percentage of it. And you know what, when you find that you had 20g to your name, buy up something that cost 15g, and resell it for 30g… you will have just increased your total net worth by 50% in one stroke. Let me know what you learned from this risk taking exercise. Even if it’s that “it’s stupid, I lost all my money and had to resell it for much cheaper.” Use the find a deal technique and chances are that won’t happen. See ya next time.

Tags: auction house, risk taking, searching