Blog Archives
Guardian Cub – Gold Sale or Gold Sink?
People can be such irrational drama queens.
Blizzard will do something from a business standpoint, and folks lose their minds. Case in point, the Pet Store. When Blizzard started selling in-game pets for out of game money, people lost their shit. Blizzard became money-hungry in the eyes of the ignorant masses, and by offering vanity pets for dollars they were breaking the game, and killing puppies. It was so obviously just a matter of time before you could simply buy epics, buy levels, and buy gold. So obvious.
The fact that people actually bought the stuff en masse, thereby encouraging Blizzard to sell more pets/mounts, was lost on the masses.
Watching people unravel like this drives me up the wall. They make assumptions based on nothing but wild speculation, ignoring the fact that people have been buying TCG loot cards on eBay for hundreds of dollars since the card game first came out. The second it was Blizzard offering up vanity items for a reasonable price (compared to the loot cards), it was a crime against common decency. It was as if players were being ordered at gunpoint that they had to buy these stupid things or no more gameplay for them.
Fast forward to the Guardian Cub. Well once again, it was so obvious that Blizzard was doing this as a way to subvert the gold sellers. More importantly, it was Blizzard’s way of selling gold without actually selling gold. Why, Blizz even said as much, stating that people who bought the Guardian Cub could sell it on the Auction House since it wasn’t a soulbound item.
I saw the Guardian Cub as something else. It wasn’t Blizzard’s way of “selling gold”, since it wasn’t actually introducing more gold into the economy. What they were doing was selling a gold sink, rather than introducing a new one in-game. People were going to pay for this gold sink, and server economy was going to determine how much that sink was. Assuming, of course, that people bought the pet to sell rather than use like any other vanity pet.
For the first time, I think Blizzard did something a little underhanded. They played on the natural greed and laziness of the player base and planted that gold-making seed. Hell, even WoW Gold Bloggers knew it wasn’t going to be successful for long. After a couple of weeks, the pet price would bottom out and it wouldn’t be the gold grab people thought it would be.
Turns out it only took a couple of days.
I checked several servers on the Undermine Journal and after about three days, prices seem to be sitting at 5-8k gold. AHSpy did a better job and listed the average across all servers, which for U.S. servers appears to be about 8600 gold. Eight and a half thousand gold for a ten dollar pet. A quick Google search came back with gold sellers offering up prices of about one dollar per one thousand gold. Even the mouth breathers can do the math on this one.
The Guardian Cub seems to be showing a shift in Blizzard’s marketing approach. Instead of playing to people’s ego and vanity by giving them cute things to buy, Blizzard hit them in their greedy spot and scored in a big way. I would not be surprised if they announce at some point that the Guardian Cub is their best seller to date. If they do, I guarantee those sales aren’t just because that thing looks cute. Once again, the players will be to blame for the success of the pet.
And once again, the players will bitch about Blizzard selling it in the first place.
Ask Jeeves – Low Level Gold Making
If you had played World of Warcraft back in the days of Wrath, you’re probably heard of Jeeves. If you’re not down with the Mech Tech, let me give you the 4-1-1 on him. He’s only the best assistant any Engineer could hope for. He provides mobile bank access, vendoring, and repairs gear. Most people who have interacted with him, though, have only done so briefly. The ‘bot is very busy, and doesn’t like wasting his time with idle chit chat. However, I think he’s sweet on my microwave so every now and then he’ll field questions that I ask him on behalf of the peeps out there.
This question was in regards to gold making:
Dear Jeeves,
I’m just starting out on a brand new server and I’d really like to have some gold in my pocket. I’ve been told to play the Auction House, but I have no idea what that means and I’d rather be playing the game instead. Is there an easier way for a low level character to make gold without having a degree in economics?
Once he’d finished making eyes at my appliances, Jeeves offered up some helpful tips that I’d like to share with you.
Get Gathering Professions. Ah, the old standby. Since you can get gathering professions at level one, and you get XP when you work over a mining/herbal node, getting two gathering professions right off the bat can help you level up just by digging up herbs and rocks. In fact, you could level up to 85 with just mining and herbalism, if you really like punishing yourself. In any case, everything you farm up will sell, so if you put in the time you can make some decent starter cash. Take your first few silver (from quests, selling everything you’re wearing, or mailbox dancing – I don’t judge), get mining and herbalism (as well as a mining pick), and start farming ore and herbs. Once you have a few stacks of gathering goodness, get thee to the nearest capital city. Sell everything you picked up other than your stacks at a vendor (to cover deposit costs), and post your ore/herbs on the Auction House.
Sell Vendor Recipes and Mats. Since you’re already in the big city, take this opportunity to visit all the profession trainers (ask a guard if you’re unsure where they are). Yes, all of them. Once you track them down, don’t talk to them. Haha but no this is not a joke. I’m sure they’re quite lovely people, but you’re not here to talk to the trainers. You want to check out that bored-looking profession supply vendor hanging out somewhere nearby. Many of them have limited sale items (recipes, mats) that you can buy for silver, but sell for gold on the AH.
Sell Vendor Pets. Every capital city has a vendor that sells pets, either right in the city or somewhere close by. Once you have enough to buy these pets (45-50 silver is usually the going rate), pick up one or two and sell them on the AH. People can be a lazy bunch, and they’d rather spend gold to buy companion pets right off the Auction House than tracking down the pet vendors and buying them directly from the source.
Do the Daily Cooking Quest. Once you reach level ten, you can do the daily quest for Cooking which is available in each of the capital cities. The cooking token you get for completing the quest is generally used to buy recipes from the vendor, but you can also use it to buy an Imported Supplies satchel. This sack holds cocoa beans, which players can use to make chocolate cookies for achievements. Run the quest every day, buy your cocoa bean and put them on the AH.
Shop Smart. Shop Dalaran. Remember back in the Wrath of the Lich King days when Dalaran was the place to be? It still is for low level characters with some change in their pocket. Hop a zeppelin and fly to either Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra – there’s a flight path from there that’ll take you straight to Dalaran. Why do you want to go there? Why, for more vendor recipes and more pets to buy! And so much more! Just bring plenty of gold. Hey, it takes money to make money.
Lowbie Inscription. You can pick up this profession at level 5, but I wouldn’t suggest picking this up unless you’ve got a few gold to invest, or a few stacks of herbs you can mill into ink. What you want to do is level your Inscription up to 75 and do your daily Minor Inscription research. The results are random, but you can end up with some glyphs that you can sell for quite a bit of scratch. That’s the beauty of Inscription – it’s the only profession you can get at a low level, and create something that a high level character can use. It’s one of the better professions like that. I’ve done this myself in the past, and it worked out well for me. As with anything that depends on the individual server’s market, your mileage may vary.
Well there’s a handful of simple ideas to get a lowbie started. Once you get comfortable with selling things on the Auction House, maybe you want to start flipping items for profit. But that’s outside the scope of this post.
Do you have any other tips for lowbies to make some gold? Let me know in the comments below!
Rokk Talk 