Shinigami
Friday, 7th January 2005, 12:47
Found on the US official forum, I've highlighted a certain trick in red, which means that I consider it scamming and a reason to be kicked from the guild, but otherwise the post is interesting :)
This was written by Kalypso of Clan Lies on Arthas.
Kalypso's Guide To Making Money
There are several ways to make an extremely large ammount of money, and even more to make a small fortune but with less effort, I will go through all the methods I know of in this post. I made 50g in one day at level 25, so if you think something here is wrong or don't like me then don't read this and save me time responding to you're ignorant responses. I know what I'm talking about, I make more cash than level 60's (I have 3 mutual on my F list, and have taught 2 of them how to make money. One got his epic with my advice). Anywho without further ado, how to make money.
Selecting Professions:
I like to think of professions as the greatest factor in how much money you can make, because almost everything depends on whether you're profession is in demand and whether or not you can explot that.
I'll run through every profession and how they can BEST make money, so you know what to do if you did something stupid like choose blacksmithing:
Gathering Professions
Mining:
Mining is the most profitable of the gathering professions because BOTH PROFESSIONS THAT DEPEND ON MINING NEED ANYTHING YOU CAN MINE TO IMPROVE THEM. If you wish to raise engineering or blacksmithing to its full potential you shouldn't have any mining materials left over, hence making mining materials very profitable. Specificly Mining Mithril and Iron in Charred Vale can bring in as much as 20g in an hour, I've had more. Extremely profitable.
Skinning:
Some people say that mining and skinning make the most money, in fact alot of people say that, but you know what? They're idiots. Skinning is so completely unprofitable it sickens me, leather is so common and easy to get at the auction house I raised Leatherworking on a smurf to 225 with about 4-5g and NO SKINNING at all. The prices for leather are so low, no matter how easy to get, that skinning is NOT GOOD FOR PROFIT.
Herbalism:
In my experience with herbalism (which is not much) you have to really go out of your way to get herbs, and I know they have semi-low prices on AH. HOWEVER, herbalism complements Alchemy, which is one of the most profitable crafting professions (5 good potions can go for more than a gold).
Fishing:
Useless. My friend maxed fishing and hasn't got anything worth using, don't waste you're time.
Crafing Professions
Engineering:
Engineering is almost completely non-profitable because everything you make requires engineering to use, and alot is bind on pickup. I am a Gnomish Engineer, however, because you can make some amazing things with engineering that you wouldn't have access to without it. Examples being Gnomish Shrink Ray, Gnomish Death Ray, Gnomish Battle Chicken, Gnomish Net-o-matic, Gnomish Rocket Boots, Parachute Cloak, Deepdive Helmet, Gnomish Mind-Control Cap, Catseye Ultra Goggles, Mithril Mechanical Dragonling and Gnomish Cloaking Device.
Blacksmithing:
Blacksmithing will have you kicking yourself by the time you max it, almost everything you make is already being made by 10 other people, it takes a ton of materials (20 enchanted thorium bars for a 285 recipe along with about 40 other ingrediants) to make anything, and the payout is very low. Mithril Spurs and Shield Spikes are helpful, but extremely common, and the profit margin is very, very low. If you are a blacksmith make truesilver armor, it sells for a fairly large price. DO NOT USE AUCTION HOUSE, advertise by shout, auction house is constantly flooded with blacksmithed materials.
Leatherworking:
Leatherworking seems almost non-profit if it werent for the amazing Turtle Scale items that go for 5-10g a pop. Farm turtles and make these, you will be able to get rich quick, I garantee it.
Tailoring:
Bags. Bags. Bags. You can buy 5g of mageweave and turn it into 15g of bags, you can also easily farm areas and produce tons of cash with Bags. Most good tailored items for casters are BoP so you can't make bank with that but BAGS are where it's at for profit here.
Enchanting:
Depending on you're servers rates this can be a huge profit or an enormous sink. On low population servers enchanters live large, being able to charge almost twice that of high population servers. Enchanting on a large server is just asking to be poor.
Alchemy:
Alchemy is so rare (one in 20 people or less are alchemists) and so needed that I believe it to be a VERY good profession for making money. Pots go at extremely high rates, herbs are everywhere and there is just a plain LACK OF ALCHEMISTS in this game. Alchemy is a surefire win for making cash.
Cooking and First Aid:
Don't waste you're time. Cooking is good for hunters with pets, first aid is almost useless.
Now time for something a little more interesting:
Tricks to Make Money:
*I DO NOT DO THIS, THIS IS NOT THE ONLY THING IN THIS POST SO STOP ACTING LIKE IT IS. I ACCIDENTALLY DID IT ONCE SO I WROTE IT IN, QUIT GETTING ALL BENT OUT OF SHAPE ABOUT THIS ONE THING, GOD*
1- When you are cutting a deal with someone to buy something always offer a X.y gold. When you say '1.9g' you can get away with giving them 1 gold and 9 silver VERY EASILY and they hardly ever notice. Always bargain down to .9 and then walk away with profit.
*IF YOU DON'T LIKE THAT, DON'T DO IT, I DON'T. READ EVERYTHING ELSE AND APPRECIATE THE THREAD FOR THE WEALTH OF INFORMATION THAT IT IS, NOT FOR THIS ONE LINE*
2- Find things people don't have and supply them. At one point there was almost no Wool in my auction house so I bought out all the wool that was there and put it all back up 75s buyin 3g buyout, I made 30g that day.
3- Control you're market. If you can farm an item and buyout other peoples version of that item you can control the price of it. I have done this with mithril, wool, silk and iron.
4- Recipes are the most demanded item in the game, here are the locations of some good recipes to buy and then resell for profit. These almost always sell, and bring me good tidings:
Schematic: Acurate Scope from the Engineering Supplier in Booty Bay. Buy for 20s, sell for 1g.
Schematic: Mechanical Dragonling and Schematic: Deadly Scope from the secret vendor in eastern Stranglethorn Vale. Buy for 1g/40s, sell for 3-4g/1-2g.
Pattern: White Wedding Dress in Thunder Bluff Middle Tier from the Tailoring Supplier. Buy for 1g sell for 2-3g.
Plans: Massive Iron Axe and Moonsteal Broadsword from Grom'gol and Booty Bay, buy for 50s/40s and sell for 1-2g.
Formula: Enchant Chest Greater Health in Everlook. Buy for 1.2g sell for 3g.
5- If you are selling an item, always check other items prices. I sell my silk for 59s99c while everyone else sells for 60s, mine never lasts more than an hour in the AH before it is bought out. 1c can make an enormous differance in whether or not you're item is going to be purchased. Find what they are going for and go 1c under =D
6- Buy Low Sell High. I keep tabs on several blue items that regularly appear in the auction house, particularly Winged Helm and Robe of the Magi. They can sell for as high as 15g but I can frequently buy them for 5g.
7- Change professions if yours sucks, don't wait for it to get better. I dropped blacksmithing for gnomish engineering because I saw how useless blacksmithing was going to be beforehand.
8- Sometimes you can buy materials at the AH and refine them and sell at vendor for more. I can buy 20 iron bars for 2g at AH, buy 20 silk for 60s and buy 20 stone for 40s, then make them into bombs and sell them at a vendor for a whopping 6-7g.
9- Keep a good public image. Nearly everyone on my server knows who I am, and whether or not they like me is a big factor in whether or not my things sell. When my popularity goes down I use one of my 5 AH mules to sell items for me.
10- Use AH mules. I sell 5-6 of a recipe at a time, if I put them all up on my main character at once they would never sell because people would know I obviously was farming them. However when I sell them on 3-4 differant names they go like hotcakes. Also have you're mules put things up for higher prices than you're main character, it makes you look good. Plus you don't have to travel to the AH to make transactions.
11- Don't repeatedly sell something at the same price if it doesn't sell well. Reduce the price by its AH fee every time it dwindles, and if you try 3 times with no sale STOP TRYING. Vendor it.
12- AH is not the only way to sell something. Inspect people and see if they would need to use it, shout things you have for sale WITH WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO SELL FOR (Saying whisper with offer doesn't work).
13- NEVER put a low buyin with a high buyout because you're item will not be bought out, people will just compete at buyin and you will not make a profit, in fact you will probly lose money.
14- Sell things in small quantities, in small quantities they are more likely to sell, and for more money.
Good Luck and Happy Hunting, I'll update this with more things as I think of them.
This was written by Kalypso of Clan Lies on Arthas.
Kalypso's Guide To Making Money
There are several ways to make an extremely large ammount of money, and even more to make a small fortune but with less effort, I will go through all the methods I know of in this post. I made 50g in one day at level 25, so if you think something here is wrong or don't like me then don't read this and save me time responding to you're ignorant responses. I know what I'm talking about, I make more cash than level 60's (I have 3 mutual on my F list, and have taught 2 of them how to make money. One got his epic with my advice). Anywho without further ado, how to make money.
Selecting Professions:
I like to think of professions as the greatest factor in how much money you can make, because almost everything depends on whether you're profession is in demand and whether or not you can explot that.
I'll run through every profession and how they can BEST make money, so you know what to do if you did something stupid like choose blacksmithing:
Gathering Professions
Mining:
Mining is the most profitable of the gathering professions because BOTH PROFESSIONS THAT DEPEND ON MINING NEED ANYTHING YOU CAN MINE TO IMPROVE THEM. If you wish to raise engineering or blacksmithing to its full potential you shouldn't have any mining materials left over, hence making mining materials very profitable. Specificly Mining Mithril and Iron in Charred Vale can bring in as much as 20g in an hour, I've had more. Extremely profitable.
Skinning:
Some people say that mining and skinning make the most money, in fact alot of people say that, but you know what? They're idiots. Skinning is so completely unprofitable it sickens me, leather is so common and easy to get at the auction house I raised Leatherworking on a smurf to 225 with about 4-5g and NO SKINNING at all. The prices for leather are so low, no matter how easy to get, that skinning is NOT GOOD FOR PROFIT.
Herbalism:
In my experience with herbalism (which is not much) you have to really go out of your way to get herbs, and I know they have semi-low prices on AH. HOWEVER, herbalism complements Alchemy, which is one of the most profitable crafting professions (5 good potions can go for more than a gold).
Fishing:
Useless. My friend maxed fishing and hasn't got anything worth using, don't waste you're time.
Crafing Professions
Engineering:
Engineering is almost completely non-profitable because everything you make requires engineering to use, and alot is bind on pickup. I am a Gnomish Engineer, however, because you can make some amazing things with engineering that you wouldn't have access to without it. Examples being Gnomish Shrink Ray, Gnomish Death Ray, Gnomish Battle Chicken, Gnomish Net-o-matic, Gnomish Rocket Boots, Parachute Cloak, Deepdive Helmet, Gnomish Mind-Control Cap, Catseye Ultra Goggles, Mithril Mechanical Dragonling and Gnomish Cloaking Device.
Blacksmithing:
Blacksmithing will have you kicking yourself by the time you max it, almost everything you make is already being made by 10 other people, it takes a ton of materials (20 enchanted thorium bars for a 285 recipe along with about 40 other ingrediants) to make anything, and the payout is very low. Mithril Spurs and Shield Spikes are helpful, but extremely common, and the profit margin is very, very low. If you are a blacksmith make truesilver armor, it sells for a fairly large price. DO NOT USE AUCTION HOUSE, advertise by shout, auction house is constantly flooded with blacksmithed materials.
Leatherworking:
Leatherworking seems almost non-profit if it werent for the amazing Turtle Scale items that go for 5-10g a pop. Farm turtles and make these, you will be able to get rich quick, I garantee it.
Tailoring:
Bags. Bags. Bags. You can buy 5g of mageweave and turn it into 15g of bags, you can also easily farm areas and produce tons of cash with Bags. Most good tailored items for casters are BoP so you can't make bank with that but BAGS are where it's at for profit here.
Enchanting:
Depending on you're servers rates this can be a huge profit or an enormous sink. On low population servers enchanters live large, being able to charge almost twice that of high population servers. Enchanting on a large server is just asking to be poor.
Alchemy:
Alchemy is so rare (one in 20 people or less are alchemists) and so needed that I believe it to be a VERY good profession for making money. Pots go at extremely high rates, herbs are everywhere and there is just a plain LACK OF ALCHEMISTS in this game. Alchemy is a surefire win for making cash.
Cooking and First Aid:
Don't waste you're time. Cooking is good for hunters with pets, first aid is almost useless.
Now time for something a little more interesting:
Tricks to Make Money:
*I DO NOT DO THIS, THIS IS NOT THE ONLY THING IN THIS POST SO STOP ACTING LIKE IT IS. I ACCIDENTALLY DID IT ONCE SO I WROTE IT IN, QUIT GETTING ALL BENT OUT OF SHAPE ABOUT THIS ONE THING, GOD*
1- When you are cutting a deal with someone to buy something always offer a X.y gold. When you say '1.9g' you can get away with giving them 1 gold and 9 silver VERY EASILY and they hardly ever notice. Always bargain down to .9 and then walk away with profit.
*IF YOU DON'T LIKE THAT, DON'T DO IT, I DON'T. READ EVERYTHING ELSE AND APPRECIATE THE THREAD FOR THE WEALTH OF INFORMATION THAT IT IS, NOT FOR THIS ONE LINE*
2- Find things people don't have and supply them. At one point there was almost no Wool in my auction house so I bought out all the wool that was there and put it all back up 75s buyin 3g buyout, I made 30g that day.
3- Control you're market. If you can farm an item and buyout other peoples version of that item you can control the price of it. I have done this with mithril, wool, silk and iron.
4- Recipes are the most demanded item in the game, here are the locations of some good recipes to buy and then resell for profit. These almost always sell, and bring me good tidings:
Schematic: Acurate Scope from the Engineering Supplier in Booty Bay. Buy for 20s, sell for 1g.
Schematic: Mechanical Dragonling and Schematic: Deadly Scope from the secret vendor in eastern Stranglethorn Vale. Buy for 1g/40s, sell for 3-4g/1-2g.
Pattern: White Wedding Dress in Thunder Bluff Middle Tier from the Tailoring Supplier. Buy for 1g sell for 2-3g.
Plans: Massive Iron Axe and Moonsteal Broadsword from Grom'gol and Booty Bay, buy for 50s/40s and sell for 1-2g.
Formula: Enchant Chest Greater Health in Everlook. Buy for 1.2g sell for 3g.
5- If you are selling an item, always check other items prices. I sell my silk for 59s99c while everyone else sells for 60s, mine never lasts more than an hour in the AH before it is bought out. 1c can make an enormous differance in whether or not you're item is going to be purchased. Find what they are going for and go 1c under =D
6- Buy Low Sell High. I keep tabs on several blue items that regularly appear in the auction house, particularly Winged Helm and Robe of the Magi. They can sell for as high as 15g but I can frequently buy them for 5g.
7- Change professions if yours sucks, don't wait for it to get better. I dropped blacksmithing for gnomish engineering because I saw how useless blacksmithing was going to be beforehand.
8- Sometimes you can buy materials at the AH and refine them and sell at vendor for more. I can buy 20 iron bars for 2g at AH, buy 20 silk for 60s and buy 20 stone for 40s, then make them into bombs and sell them at a vendor for a whopping 6-7g.
9- Keep a good public image. Nearly everyone on my server knows who I am, and whether or not they like me is a big factor in whether or not my things sell. When my popularity goes down I use one of my 5 AH mules to sell items for me.
10- Use AH mules. I sell 5-6 of a recipe at a time, if I put them all up on my main character at once they would never sell because people would know I obviously was farming them. However when I sell them on 3-4 differant names they go like hotcakes. Also have you're mules put things up for higher prices than you're main character, it makes you look good. Plus you don't have to travel to the AH to make transactions.
11- Don't repeatedly sell something at the same price if it doesn't sell well. Reduce the price by its AH fee every time it dwindles, and if you try 3 times with no sale STOP TRYING. Vendor it.
12- AH is not the only way to sell something. Inspect people and see if they would need to use it, shout things you have for sale WITH WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO SELL FOR (Saying whisper with offer doesn't work).
13- NEVER put a low buyin with a high buyout because you're item will not be bought out, people will just compete at buyin and you will not make a profit, in fact you will probly lose money.
14- Sell things in small quantities, in small quantities they are more likely to sell, and for more money.
Good Luck and Happy Hunting, I'll update this with more things as I think of them.