State of the economy/my wow wallet

Following up from my last post on the 3 stages of an expansion I have been hitting the auction house lately to keep things interesting in the winding down of wrath. I've continued in my attempts to goblin it up and make some nice cash before the Cataclysm release date is announced and the bottom falls out of the market faster than a redhead getting sunburnt on a hot day. I've enjoyed pretty good success and over the past week I've pulled in almost 15,000g which given the fickle state of the Nagrand AH and my relatively small knowledge the wow economy is an effort I'm very pleased with.

So what's been hard about it then you might ask?

Nagrand suffers from saturation and/or AH campers in most markets you can think of (glyphs rarely get above 4g etc) whilst mats that based on my reading around the blogosphere should be realtively cheap are very expensive almost all the time. An example of this is the fact that the combined price of saronite ore and eternal earth mean the saronite shuffle is only profitable if you luck out and get one-off cheap prices. Campers are a bit of a strange but annoying issue as they are very haphazardly hitting markets like glyphs, enchanting scrolls and runescrolls for a few days at a time and then dissappearing again. All in all this makes for a highly volatile market for most of the items that are bread-and-butter sellers.

How have I combatted these huge (small) problems?

The main strategy I've used is something that works as well in wow as in the real world: diversification. I have maxed (or near enough to it) tailoring, jewelcrafting, enchanting, inscription and alchemy (transmute spec) and I make and sell items from all of these instead of just focussing on one or two things. As a result, if the glyph and enchanting scroll markets are pushed down by a camper or for whatever other reason are not as profitable as I want, I can sell bags and gems etc and still turn a good profit. As you can see in the pictures below of my beancounter data on various items my profits are spread across a lot of different areas so if a particular market collapses I only lose a small portion of my overall earning power.

Along with crafting and selling up a storm I've also begun stockpiling a few things in preparation for Cataclysm:

- Netherweave bags: these currently sell for between 7.5g and 20g but given the massive number of worgen that are bound to be rolled there will be a massive increase in demand for these puppies and it is a goldmine in the making.

- Runecloth: the same goes for runecloth as for bags. A big number of those new werewolves worgen are going to want to rep up fast through runecloth turnins.

- Ink/glyphs: with the changes to glyphing in the new expansion there will be an explosion of demand for all glyphs at the start of Cata as well as a ridiculous increase in the cost of mats for a while so a decent stock of the various inks and glyphs is easy money.

So the basic moral of the story is that if you want to make money in wow ensure you every avenue available to you as putting all your eggs in one basket will always end in tears sooner or later. Oh, and also Cataclysm is an absolute goldmine in the making so get onboard the gravy train!

-Seal