Project Lore

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems features tips and tricks to striking it rich in World of Warcraft.  If you need some extra gold to cover those costly repair bills, are working on an epic flyer for your umpteenth alt, or are attempting to hit the gold cap, Mo' Money, Mo' Problems is for you.  Have ideas or tips you'd like to submit?  Then @iTZKooPA or leave a detailed comment. Ahh, gold, I collect it even though I have little use for it these days.  Due to that fact I am willing to share my gold making ways with you, free of charge!  No longer will you have to drop real money on some random gold making guide seen on Google Ads panes.  You can just come to your friendly ProjectLore were we, and the community, will collect, refine and categorize ways to turn a buck in our favorite MMORPG.  We've already given out a few basic tips in the past, but now I will pull out all the stops, and go so far as to tell you my biggest money makers. On this second edition of Mo' Money, Mo' Problems we will cover ways to turn Brewfest into a beer drinking and money making seasonal event.  Okay, ways may be stretching it, as I have only found one surefire scheme to turn a tidy profit from the seasonal event.  The quests generally reward nothing but steins and tokens, and the loot from Coren Direbrew is unvendorable and not disenchantable.  All of it except the Tankard O' Terror.  The gnome-sized tankard is truly a money maker. For starters, the tankard is the only BoE weapon above ilvl 200.  That makes it worth at least 1000 gold right there.  The mug isn't exactly rare, I've already seen a few, but it's highly limited availability, only drops during Brewfest of course, will also impact the price.  The non-unique status means that a moneymaker like yourself can have on in the AH, and continue to farm for another.  Oh, and people may want to dual wield them, driving up the demand, thus the price, further.  A perfect storm of potential profit in my mind. That's all pretty basic stuff, but here's the real tip, hold out on putting your tankard on the AH.  As mentioned, the supply is limited by the presence of Brewfest.  If you don't need the money right now, then you'll be able to raise your profit to stupid levels if you can hold out until a few weeks after Brewfest is complete.  Just be sure to play the AH before Blizzard decides to release another high ilvl weapon for the next seasonal event! Tankard O' Terror is running around 1500 gold on my server at the moment.  What it's priced at on yours?  Have you already cashed in?

Click to read more ...

It started out great. Hitting 80, jumping into dungeons, my first downing of the Black Knight and subsequent farming of ToC. Then came the daily heroics. I was slowly building up my collection of purples, and it showed as my DPS jumped from really crappy to only moderately crappy (still working on that part - hoping rounding out with more purples helps!) Yes, Locomomo's advancements in Azeroth made me giddy. What did not was the depletion of my bank from a couple thousand gold to only a couple hundred; mostly from high repair bills and buying gems to socket into my shiny new gear. Those stupid jewels, if you want the good ones, are ridiculously expensive. And I DO want the good ones, at least for the gear that I probably won't replace for a while. I haven't even started looking at enchants yet, unless it's something a guildy can help me out with. In the grand scheme of things, what I've spent so far isn't all that much gold - I'm sure I could make it back pretty quickly if I really needed to. But therein lies the problem. If I take the time each day to run the dailies I need to make back gold, I lose out on raiding time. If I raid, I get more awesome gear that needs gems to make it even more awesome. Not to mention higher repair costs. What's a girl to do!? I'm thinking it comes down to time management. I don't play as much during the week anyway, but if I can manage to pop on for a few dailies each day, then save up longer raiding sessions for the weekend, that might be the key. Finishing up my exploring may have to be put on hold. Another possible solution - finishing off leveling up my leatherworking so I can get my buffs from the profession, and maybe even making some money off what I can make. Then once I get the leatherworking up, I could drop skinning and pick up another crafting profession. But then there's the issue of leveling it up without the gathering profession - of course, that takes more money! Then again, if it's jewelcrafting I pick up, then I won't have to buy jewels anymore, just the reagents. Ack, too many decisions! Any readers out there with two crafting professions? For that matter, any with dual gathering? Do you use it more for the benefit of your own buffs, or for money making? What other methods have you found to manage gold-making and gold-spending?

Click to read more ...

One of the fundamental things that players should understand about the WoW economy is that there is massive deflation. Items, in general, become less valuable over time as new items are introduced. Players no longer want iLvl 200 or even 213 crafted gear, as well geared players from high level raids can easily carry them through heroics or Naxxramas. As such, materials for crafted gear are less in demand than they once were. Blue gems should lose value once epic gems become accessible. Additionally, once an item is introduced, the players that want it the most will pay ridiculous prices to get it first. Prices lower over time as supply ramps up for non-top tier raiders. In general, its a bad idea to stockpile items. However, understanding how new changes will affect the economy and acting early can lead to huge profits. There are two major changes that will affect the economy in patch 3.2. The first is the introduction of epic gems; the second is that Emblems of Conquest are now obtainable in all pre-Crusader dungeons and raids. We will talk mainly about epic gems for now. Epic gems are obtained in a few different ways. Lets review:

• Alchemy Transmutes
• Icy Prism. You can't save them up now, so don't try
• Prospecting Titanium Ore
• Buying with Honor or Emblems of Heroism

Buying them with Honor and Emblems will probably be very unpopular, as everything will be dropping Emblems of Conquest and players will be eager to grab new gear before they will grab new gems. The other three will have a profound effect on the market. First, lets look at Alchemy transmutes. Most Alchemists are Elixir Masters. As as Alchemist myself, I can vouch for how useful this is. I make dozens of flasks a day, and this generates tons of gold. If I can get a friend to craft my elixirs who is elixir specced, Transmutation Master for myself might be profitable. Since transmutations are on a 20 hour cooldown, its hard to share that ability with anyone, but a group of a few alchemists could have 1 elixir master and all the rest be Transmutation Masters to optimize overall output. I know my guild is organizing something like this. Transmuting an epic gem usually requires a blue gem of the same color as the desired epic gem and a specific Eternal. The following is a list of transmutes as they are now on the PTR:

• Transmute: Flawless Amytrine: Monarch Topaz and Eternal Shadow
• Transmute: Cardinal Ruby: Scarlet Ruby and Eternal Fire
• Transmute: Dreadstone: Twilight Opal and Eternal Shadow
• Transmute: Eye of Zul: 3 Forest Emerald
• Transmute: King's Amber: Autumn’s Glow and Eternal Life
• Transmute: Majestic Zircon: Sky Sapphire and Eternal Air

The first thing to note is that players will be getting epic gems from a few sources. Players will largely be consuming the same amount of gems overall, as they will have about the same number of sockets. Some of the new recipes require epic gems, but it won't have a huge impact on the market. Since only some portion of the epic gems being consumed use current rare gems as a material means that consumption of rare gems is going to go way down. There will still be a market as the poor man's gem and as reagents for transmutes, but the prices of uncut and cut rare gems should drop significantly. Get rid of any stock that you have. The exception may be Forest Emerald, which requires 3 gems for the transmute. Only time will tell relatively how valuable they will be, but blue gems are used a lot by tanks, so I'm predicting a good market for the epic blue gems and hence Forest Emerald. Also, expect Eternal consumption to go way up with lots of new recipes and the transmutes. Its unclear how often Icy Prism will give epic gems. It will be the only thing keeping Frozen Orbs valuable. It will continue to be the only thing keeping uncommon gems in consumption. There are lots of these in Titanium Ore, so expect them to lose even more value in patch 3.2. We are looking at vendor trash level of value. According to WarcraftEcon's results, they are getting around 6 uncommon gems per prospect, and people will be prospecting a lot to get epic gems. Speaking of prospecting Titanium, this is going to be the game changer. People are stockpiling Titanium now, which may or may not be a good idea. It might be overvalued right now; it's risky to do. However, with rare gems losing demand and rare gems being the result of Titanium prospects as often of epic gems, rare gems should lose a significant amount of value from this alone. The flipside to this is that the value of Saronite and Cobalt should crash, as they will no longer be valuable to prospect. This is going to be a huge window of opportunity for Blacksmiths, who can potentially make lots of BoE stuff and disenchant it. Expect Enchanting supplies to increase in supply in the long run and prices to drop. Finally, note the materials for the new crafted items, including a new orb from the Argent Coliseum: Crusader's Orb. This list was complied by the writers at WarcraftEcon:

• Titansteel Bar
• Saronite Bar
• Arctic Fur
• Heavy Borean Leather
• Icy Dragonscale
• Nerubian Chitin
• Moonshroud
• Spellweave
• Ebonweave
• Crusader Orb
• Various epic gems, Eternals, Enchanting materials
• Deadly Saronite Dirk
• Corroded Saronite Woundbringer

These will probably enjoy a small price boost in the first month or so of patch 3.2. Remember, the first two weeks will be crazy, as everyone will want epic gems and consumption will be through the roof. Expect it to level off within about 6 weeks. What are your plans to profit in patch 3.2?

Click to read more ...

Sometimes I have to stop and think that I made the wrong choice as far as my professions go. Being a tank I have grown accustomed to always being out of gold due to massive repair bills, but if I had made the smart choice I would have picked a profession to help balance that out. I didn’t. I am an enchanter/engineer, so I have two crafting professions. This means I don’t gather up mats, I have to buy them to level my professions. So it is safe to say I have spent a fair bit of time trolling the auction house looking for good deals. With the expansion being so new, there are lots of spikes and valleys as the market settles on a price for these new materials, but there is one trend that holds true no matter what. You gatherers are making a killing selling your mats! Prices on some of the more sought after mats have been just mind blowing. I know prices vary highly from server to server. But I am guessing we are all seeing the same trends. Being an engineer I’ve had to buy up lots of cobalt, saronite, and titanium bars to level up high enough to craft my goggles. This was an expensive process for me. The prices were just sky high, early on I saw stacks of lower level bars going for hundreds of gold each. Prices for herbs and leather haven’t been particularly low themselves. I imagine that those that are supplying these mats are getting very wealthy from them. I have several gathering friends that have straight up told me they have more gold then they know what to do with. That sounds like a good problem to have? I am pretty jealous of you guys that have built in income everyday from smelting titansteel. I’m fully aware that enchanters don’t have it so bad, and that enchanting mats are fetching a small fortune as well. My priority was leveling enchanting with those mats. Perhaps now that I am at 450 I can start to get some money back there. As far as my engineering goes, I am looking for clouds and gathering eternals… but these income methods seem to pail in comparison to the true gathering professions. It’s clear that there is gold to be had in Northrend if you know how to do it. So how are you doing? Are you gathering up a small fortune? Or are you the one lining the gatherers pockets?

Click to read more ...