I don’t know why I do this. I make a game within the game, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to win. There is no winning. There is just playing. Maybe that’s the victory in it. Maybe I’m writing this on the tail end of a night shift and my brain is running on nostalgia, alarm bells, and coffee. Who can say for sure at this point. 

I like making gold. But I’m a simple man with simple needs. I don’t raid, so I’m not spending thousands of gold per week on consumables or repairs. I tend to reuse transmog sets, so I’m not spending gold on making my toons look pretty. And while I can appreciate a good looking mount, the novelty doesn’t last very long. I’ve got a couple hundred mounts, but I use maybe six of them and those tend to be more utility based (mounts with vendors, mounts that walk on water) rather than “oooohhh pretty” (mounts that are pretty).

Function over frills. 

But like I said, I like making gold. I enjoy having the option to lose my mind every once in awhile and buy a piece of gear, maybe twink out a leveling alt. Throw the WoW tokens onto the fire, and I’m motivated to have a steady stream of gold coming in. Covering contingencies and so on.

Back in WoD I set up my sweat shop, stacking alts in such a way that they could generate some passive gold for me without having to invest much time in the proces. I enjoy making gold, but I don’t enjoy spending several hours doing it. I’d rather be inventing other ways to spend my time I guess. The whole thing seems a bit fuzzy. When did I sleep last?

Captain Fun, my new leveling alt, may be moving to a new server once he’s finished the whole leveling up thing. I wanted to have things set up for him on his new server once he got there. Even though he probably won’t be raiding, should he join a raiding guild I want to contribute in the two ways that will benefit the guild the most – mats and gold.

I decided that his welcoming committee would consist of three alts, with professions I could use to generate gold without much time investment – three tailors, one with a barn and two with trading posts. Hexweave bags still sell, and sell well. To move the alts, I bought three tokens and took advantage of the WoW services sale. Naturally the token price spiked just before I decided to buy them. Rather than wait to see if the price would go down, I dove into the Scrooge McDuck vault with a mighty cry of YOLO and paid just a top hat and monocle over 100k per token.

That… stings.

The tailoring trio landed on their new server, and like cheap labor in a third world country they started cranking out Hexweave bags. Satisfied with the starter batch, I put them up on the Auction House. The next day I checked the mailbox, expecting envelopes fat with gold. Instead, I found the Hexweave bags I had posted. Odd, but these things happen. I reposted them and came back the next day. Again, just bags.

Dubya Tee Eff?

I started to panic. Had the Hexweave bag market collapsed overnight? Had I just wasted 300,000g moving characters that would generate a whopping total of zero gold for me?

It was at this point that I was reminded of a little Gold Making 101 knowledge. It’s not just about knowing a certain market and what to post. It’s knowing when to post things. At this stage of the expansion, people were buying bags for their alts. I posted my bags just as patch 7.2 went live. People were not interested in, nor focused on, their alts. They were attacking new content with their mains. Therefore, items being used by alts would naturally not sell. Things like Hexweave bags.

D’oh.

I know that sales will pick up again. The gold, she will flow. But even in a click and go world, it still pays to stop and think a little. I hadn’t given much thought to the new patch, and that could have cost me a small fortune. I think the point of this post is a “look before you leap” message. It’s been a rough night and I wanted to get this down before I forgot. 

Content! Legion! Patch 7.2! Now where the Hell is my flying?