Friday, October 30, 2009

AHK, G15, and other Jedi Magic

People constantly look for ways to improve the glyph making process. One question that people bring up a lot is auto milling (or auto prospecting). There are technical ways to do this but they exist outside of wow and at face value they break the ToS. These other methods are a use at your own risk. It is a very gray line where usage of these ticks will and will not get an account banned.

I also want to mention that I am not a lawyer and this is my interpretation of the ToS and other information I have found. These are my opinions on the topic and you should form your own opinion.

The Jedi Magic that I am talking about are the ways you get around Blizzards built in limits on macros and actions to get wow to do more with less effort. Auto milling is that example. Many people look for ways to automate the milling process. Some external scripting/macro programs will simulate key presses, some hardware is programmable and will allow automated key presses, some hardware support turbo options to repeat a single key over and over while it is held down. These are all tools and some are very common.

As tools they do not break the ToS, but you can break the ToS with them. Just like carrying a hammer does not break the law, but swinging it at someone does. AHK is used by multiboxers, G15 sits on the desk of many gamers, many control pads have turbo button options, and every computer has vbscript installed. There are ways all of these can be safely used and ways they can all get your account banned. This is why this subject becomes very grey.

The closer to that line you go, the higher your risk is. Because the devil is in the details and the line is not so clear cut. You don't know if the guy checking on your activity understands these details. Just because you think your within the ToS the other guy may not agree.

Here is a good rule of thumb. If your are sending actions to your character and you are not at the keyboard then you have broken the ToS. If you have something making game decisions for you then you have broken the ToS. This is why AHK is allowed for multiboxing. Each keystroke is done by the user at the keyboard and AHK sends it to the other windows. If that same user put timed actions into AHK (like self buffing every 30 min) then he is breaking the ToS. If he sets it to press his mill macro every 3 sec for 15 min and he walks away from the computer, he broke the ToS.

It is hard to tell if they will ban you for auto milling/prospecting. If you auto mill but stop to chat with the GM when he pops up, I would guess you could save your account. This is why its a use at your own risk. If you are looking for help on how to do this automation, please look someplace else. I will remove comments asking about or giving too much information on how to do this.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Recruit A Friend

The Recruit a Friend program is a great way to power level some alts. I saw the power of this and decided it was so broken that I had to take full advantage of it. I even sold a few friends on the idea. The result was a power leveling marathon that got me 11 chars over level 60 and several alts for my friends.

Let me give you a short overview of what RAF is. It is 2 accounts linked together that gain 3x xp while they are playing together (and are close in level). Also every 2 levels the recruited account gains, he earns one free level he can gift to the recruiting account. So it works out to about 30 levels that can be gifted. These bonuses stop at level 60.

Because this stops at 60, you can take advantage of all of these things with just the original Warcraft. So for $20.00 it costs to pick up a 2nd account, you can level a pair (or several) chars to 60 very quickly. If you pay for one month on the 2nd account, the first one gets a free month. So that $20.00 gives you 60 days to use this as much as you want.

Leveling at triple xp is so fast. I was able to quest to level 10 with minimal work. I would spend 10 to 20 in sfk. Every full clear of SFK would ding a level on both chars. After SFK I would go off to SM. The problem with these low level instances is running them too quick and being forced to take a break. Once we got the system down, we were able to get that last pair to level 36 in one day.

I mentioned all my SM tricks the other day. If you read over those, you can tell I spent good deal of in there. I would go to zf or brd after SM for a few levels and finish out in strat. Once I got into strat, I found the best pulls to make in 12 min and then would reset. I would hold out in here all the way to 60. Most leveling guides take you to outland instances at 55 but you need tbc for that and I was doing this on the cheap.

Don't forget to fill the group when doing instance runs. There is a bonus xp for having more people in the party that most people overlook. It adds up and makes a difference.

The gifted levels can only be given from the recruited account to the recruiter. The person receiving the levels must be lower than the person giving them. You can also save these levels up and spend them at once. You can take a level 1 and just hand him 29 levels. If you are smart, you will power him to level 31 and then grant him the 29 levels to get to 60.

There is also a special trick you can do to basically skip level 60. You still have to get to 60 on the 2nd account first. On the first account, get as much xp as you can with out hitting 60. Stop at 59.999. You xp bar should be as full as you can get it. Then have the 60 grant the 59.999 a level and he will be 60.999. Your XP bar will still be just as full as it was. You basically got to skip level 60.

I know that this is information overload on RAF. Like I said, I walked out of the RAF program with 11 chars over level 60. Yes, that is on 2 accounts. Yes, I did some how end up with 2 mages and 2 warlocks. Yes, I still have not purchased spell or spent talent points or have any gear on most of them. Yes, I have classed that I probably will never play. But if I get the urge to play one, I start at 60.

PS: Slates had some updated information for me about an old bug with linked accounts. I used raf the first month it was out over a year ago and it sounds like they fixed a few things. Before I would make sure the level 70/80 char was not linked to the others, but it sounds like that does not matter anymore. Also I heard that you get 30 free levels now instead of 29 to gift.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Lowbies in SM

Marco over at JMTC posted some good places to power level someone. I abused the RAF program as hard as I could. Once of my key spots was SM. From lvl 20 to low 40s I would grind SM Armory and Cath for XP. Here are some important things to remember.

All 4 wings are on the same instance ID. For as short as each one is, you should do 2 wings before you reset. Even then you will run into the lockout timer. I joined a XP farming group in SM cath once. Prot pally would do 1-2 pulls and kill everything. We did it 5 times and they said they would be back in an hour. After talking with them, I realized they had no clue they could also go clear armory between resets.

Do 12 min resets. If you are resetting in less than 12 min, you will run into the instance lockout. You should be able to do both armory and cath in 12 min. If it takes you too long, consider skipping the bosses. The little bit of xp they give for that extra 1-2 min they add slows you down. You are doing raw xp per 12 min here. If you blow away that 12 min mark, do the hallway in the graveyard (not the courtyard). That first room has 12-15 mobs that are quick to get too.

Avoid the library. Do it for the gear and the key and leave it alone. The mobs reset easily and respawn quickly at the start. It is just extra trouble for you low level chars.

Remember that a lvl 20 has an insane agro range. If the low level can see a mob, he will probably agro it. In both cath and armory, you have to kill the first mob before the lvl 20 zones in. If not he will usually die before the loading screen is gone. Remember you can get xp from behind walls and at a long range. There are safe spots

The first safe spot in the armory is in that first room. Stand to either side of the doorway. I prefer the right corner with back on the wall. I run the main into the courtyard and grab the mob on the stairs and round up the whole room. I pull them too that doorway and kill them just far enough away that the low level cannot see the mobs.

The second is on the other side of the courtyard in the far right corner. Put your face in the corner of that room. take the main down stairs and round up all the mobs on the lower level. If you kill them all near the bottom of those first stairs you ran down, that low level will get all the xp from them.

The third and final spot is down stairs. Go to the set of stairs that goes up and left along that wall in the corner is where you want to stick him. Not the little corner next to the stairs, but the corner of the room to the left. Run your main up stairs and agro the rest of the instance and pull them back near the top of the stairs.

In Cath I run the main in first and drag the mobs in the all into the courtyard. The alt runs in behind and stands to the left of the courtyard about 10-20 yards. Looking at the mini map, have him stand near the corner of the courtyard. With the main, drag everything to that corner on the inside and kill them there. If you have to do it in 2 pulls, move the alt up near the waterfall but make sure you kill the pat. (That pat would kill me all the time)

After the courtyard in clear, park your alt in the left corner next to the cath doors. I put the face in the wall. Run in with the main and agro the boss. Pull the mobs to the middle of the walkway you ran down to agro the boss. Killing the mobs here will give your all xp even when he is standing outside the room.

I was using a 70 mage to do my power leveling. I had to do the armory in 3 pulls and cath in 3-4 pulls. With a level 80 you can much larger pulls. I knew some 70 that could 2 pull cath but dying just a few times slowed me down too much. I have 11 chars over lvl 60 from RAF and I never ever want to step foot in SM again.

Monday, October 26, 2009

No more trash from fishing pools?

Sometimes little thing jump out at you.

I was reading about the new fishing event to be released in 3.3.0 and it was mentioned that in 3.3.0 you never catch trash from fishing pools, regardless of skill. I don't know how I missed it the first time but I saw it there.

Because they are changing things related to fishing pools, watch those markets. I don't think this should create a large shift. Because it should be easier to catch fish in pools, expect more of those fish on the market.

A quick DE at new drop rates

I checked the AH mid day on sunday for de items and purchased 440g worth of them in 29 items. I got 25 Grater Cosmic Essences at 11g, 71 Infinite dust at 3.9g, and 2 dream shards at 20g. That gave me a DE value of 591.90g.

At the moment that is way over inflated and I expect the prices to drop way down on those mats. I bet infinite dust will settle under 3g each and the essences under 9g by the end of the week.

At the moment I am flipping everything as fast as I can before the price drops too much.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

The Competition

Normally I ignore the competition. I mean that I usually care less at what they do and do my own thing. I react to the market more than what an individual is doing. I would imagine that I miss some opportunities to mess with them by ignoring them. Recently I cut back my presence in the glyph market. Posting fewer times and not crafting as often. That threshold that I used to have lower than everyone else has been pulled up. So my market is very cutthroat at the moment and I am adjusting to let everyone else fight each other.


I decided this is a nice time to take a look at who they are. I put together a spread sheet and logged various details. What class of glyphs, min and max buyouts, durations, post counts. I ended up with over 50 names of posters. Some only had a few up so I didn't record much more than the posting name and what looked like min buyouts.

I found 7 major player that covered all glyphs with a single character. I found one player that used 3 atls and was able to connect them to each other. I also use 3 alts and I believe it would be very easy for my competition to connect them to me. Of those 8 other players, 3 of them post their entire inventory for 48 hours. 2 of them post 2 at a time for 48 hours. 3.07g was the highest threshold of them. Looks like 2 do not have a threshold. Only 2 of them had a high fallback (60g ish) and the others had fallbacks of 7-14g.

Of the remaining names on the list I found 7 people posting glyphs under 1g, 11 people posting some 1-2g. Most people posted with 48 hour auctions. I saw about 5 listings where the glyphs were in a stack.

I also saw a few people with a small representation that I know also work the market. I expected to find them as one of the major players but they had a small representation on the AH. Many things could cause this so I will not rule them out. They could be more selective with the glyphs they are posting in this market now or even giving it a chance to reset.

So I will say this market feels more cut throat than before. This last week I only crafted twice and posted less than half of what I normally do and had 740g a day in average sales over the last 6 days. That is way down from the 3-5k a day I was pulling a month ago. But I'll hang back collecting my small sales and be ready to dive in whenever the market resets.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Hot Tip: Disenchanting & Shattering Hotfix

Unload that infinite dust fast and hold on to your disenchants. It sounds like there is a hotfix on the way to change the drop rates when disenchanting. Odds are this will be applied on next server reset. So some servers will see this sooner than others.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=20677858456&postId=206757778352&sid=1

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Keyword: KTQ

KTQ is the short command for KevTool Queue. I think you can type out /kevtoolqueue queue 14 glyphs but /ktq queue 14 glyphs just flows better. It also felt strange typing out the word queue twice.

When I first wrote my mod to auto queue things into skillet, I added it on to a personal mod I already had. Kevtool and the command was /kt. At the time /kt queue was the command I ran to queue up all my glyphs.

Once I decided to release it as a mod, I pulled out all the queue logic into its own mod and renamed it. It bothers me a bit now as I type that command. /KevToolQueue Queue 14 glyphs. But now that it is in use, I don't dare change it.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Reading Patchnotes

One of the best ways I used to make gold before I truly started working the AH was from the patch notes. I think a lot more people do that now so it makes predictions a little harder but its still worth reading.

Transmute titanium is off cooldown. So you will be able to make titanium bars from 16 saronite. If dream shards are high on your server, this may kill the price. There are some things you can craft and DE into shards with Titanium bars. Looking at the cost of saronite and dreamshards on my server this will not change much. But on some servers it could have a larger impact.

I expect saronite bars to spike in price on patch day. I also expect titanium bars to crash for a few days shortly after the patch. I bet 3-5 days after the patch. This is from all the new titanium bars on the ah where the demand is still low. The 3rd time someone is relisting it is when its going to get really cheap. A secondary effect could be the drop in price of titansteel bars. When the mats drop and people remember that cooldown they have, they will produce 3-6 bars over the next week.

There is also a vendor item for the Quel’Delar Quest Chain: The Battered Hilt quest chain that you can pick up off the inscription vendor. I expect this will sell well in trade and on the AH the first few days.

AION

I am starting to work AION into my game schedule. I am cutting back on how much I work the AH and spend in WoW. Because of that I may not be posting as frequently and I have before. I picked AION for something different. I will prabably keep my raiding schedule and post some things in the AH every few days. I needed something different because I know wow too well. I am not saying I know everything, but it feels like it some time and gives that chance to discover something new.

It also has a very different economy that will teach me new things. A new market to work in a different way. To keep this blog on topic, I started one for my AION adventures in brokering. If you are interested in the things I learn and discover in AION check out My AION Broker blog.

In wow, I feel like I know what I am talking about. AION, not so much. But I'll talk anyway.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

400G-500G an hour farming fire.

I revisited an old farming spot of mine to see what kind of gold per hour it still generates. It's that cave in storm peaks I mentioned a long time ago to farm eternal fire. Here are my results after a 20 min farming session.

35x Crystallized Fire (20G an eternal)
30.5G worth of vendor greys
3 Greens that DE into 2xGreater cosmic Essence and a Dream Shard

So that was 150G in 20 min. If we expand that out to an hour, that's over 400G an hour. If you take your time and sell those as crystallized you can get 3g each instead of 2g (as an eternal). Doing that would bump it up to 500g an hour of farming time.

I farm these in a cave in storm peaks. It is in the upper left corner of the map. You see 2 caves. One is full of mobs that drop fire and the other they drop air.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Big leather purchase

I checked the price of leather on the AH and it was dirt cheap. The price normally sits 50 silver each or more recently. When I checked today, I saw it at 30 silver each on up. I picked up every piece under 46 silver. 1164 pieces of it or 58 stacks. I converted it to heavy and got 194 Heavy leather. I paid 464G for all of it, so it works out to 40 silver a piece or 2.4g per heavy leather.

I also paid 146G for 40 eternal shadow so that makes it 3.65g each. More than I need at the moment, but I will use them eventualy and the price was right.

So my favorite thing to make are dream shards. At these prices I can make one for 11.44g. I am selling them on the ah for 19g each. So that is 7.4g profit on each one I sell. That is 60% profit.

Heavy Borean Armor Kit takes 10g worth of leather and sells for over 30g. I see it listed at 39g today, but with that much mark up it will not stay that high.

So if I only made Dream Shards, I should be able to get 48 of them out of this batch for a total cost of 550. As Dream Shards, I should be able to sell them for 912G.

If I only made the armor kits, the sales should be 1440g or more. I do a healthy mix of both. I can move the shards in greater volume and I know that market better.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Scan for DE when you can

I spent 300g on greens to DE off the AH. After a quick De sessions I ended up with 54 infinite dust (4.4G), 11 Greater cosmic Essences (15G), and 2 Dreamshards (20g). So that generated 442G worth of mats for 142G profit. This market is usualy highly picked over. I ran the same scan 4 hours before and only picked up 3 items.

I did it again a few hours later. I spent 136G on 18 items. 40, 12, 5. The results was 47 Dust, 4.6 Essences, and one Dream Shard. With the same numbers as before, that gives me 295G worth of mats.

Sometimes I get very little, other times I fill my bags with items. It never hurts to check.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Getting Ink CoD

We were raiding last night and someone in the raid spent the night milling and inking. I tossed some questions his way to see what part of the inscription market he is in. It turns out its the Snowfall Ink market. With the price of them up, he farms herbs and sells the Snowfall. All his ink of the sea gets converted into snowfall.

We got a deal worked out where he sends me that ink of the sea directly now. First time I ever pulled this off. Only time will tell if it sticks. I have had many farmers set up to CoD stuff that stop after 2-3 batches. When I logged in today I had 30 stacks waiting for me.

I expect that is what he had in stock. I let him know I will use as much as he send me. Even if I don't bounce production back up to match it, rebuilding my stockpile of ink of the sea is never a bad thing.

http://www.ah-whoring.com

I am not sure how I missed adding http://www.ah-whoring.com/ to my blog list. Sarainy has compiled a great shreadsheet that does the math on all the common tricks for each profession. Like many people, I have several spreadsheets for different things. Not many are my own, but some that the comunity has provided.

What Sarainy has is a single spreadsheet to replace them all. I have thought about doing it, but was doing good enough with all of my specialty spreadsheets. I was not quick to replace them but this has been good as I move into other markets. With all those other professions so handy, it makes it easy to use it for my other things.

I now have http://www.ah-whoring.com/ in by blog list. It is a blog that I was already following, just never made to my list. So thanks Sarainy for your blog and I am sorry I didn't link to you sooner.

Friday, October 16, 2009

The officers alt banker scam

Here is a scam someone tried to pull on us a while back. It's called the officers alt banker scam.

Someone takes a look at the guild roster so see who the top officers are. They then create an alt with a name like on of those but sounds like a banker or an auction character. Kevbank is the name they tried. They waited for me to log off or they did not see me online. They would whisper all the high ranking officers asking for an invite.

Once invited they would ask to be promoted for guild bank access. Once promoted they would withdraw as much as they could before someone figured it out. I think that's how the scam should work. Like I said, this is a scam someone tried to pull.

He failed for several reasons. Most officers knew who my banker was and that was not it. The average age of our members is higher then most guild so the words he used put him way younger. I don't use the word "dude" when talking to people. I was also on an out of guild alt that one officer knew about. So he sent me a whisper shortly after it was attempted. I was able to log onto my main and tell them it was not me if anyone had any questions.

I point this out as something you should mention to your officers. So they think twice when inviting and promoting that alt. I had a mega guild once get very mad at me because officers would keep inviting me in. The guild was so big that one set of officers would gkick me on the spot and another set would invite me with out knowing they shouldn't.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Buy Low and Sell High

We hear this a lot. Everyone tells you that's what you do to make gold. So how do you know when something is low and something is high? It is much easier if its something you buy for yourself. If I run to the AH to get a belt buckel and the price looks a little high, I do the math on the mats. I did this one time and the price was way over priced. More than double the price of the mats. While I did need one now, it showed me that it is something that I should be selling.

I picked up a few stacks of the mats, found someone to craft them, and resold them in a few days while the market was up. Some things like this are just a good market. If I was a blacksmith, I would have stayed in it.

The other day I needed a epic gem. When I checked the AH, none were listed raw. So I posted a few I had at a price that averaged the cut gems. A good 50-60G markup over what I prabably picked the gem up for.

If you were paying attention a moment ago, I said I needed a epic gem but I had some to post. I buy stuff I will need later when I see its price low ahead of time. I knew I would prabably use the gem I had, but still felt I should check the AH for a cheaper one.

If I don't have the item I need, I will do the math on the raw mats and use them if it will save me gold. I know if I take everything with me to our raid, someone there can make whatever I need that I cannot make. If I am expecting to get a piece of gear, I will try to take those mats with me. When I got my T9.25 helm, it was in the middle of the raid. I had all the mats on me to gem it.

Even though I have more gold than I could ever spend, I still have a hard time overpaying for stuff. If I have to have it I will spend the gold, but saving 20G from buying smart is as good as a 20G sale.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Milling Macro

I use a milling macro to mill my herbs. The on I use only included the northrend herbs, but I saw where sarlalian posted this as a comment a while back. It includes few more.

/cast Milling
/use Lichbloom
/use Felweed
/use Deadnettle
/use Adder's Tongue
/use Tiger Lily
/use Ragveil
/use Liferoot
/use Kingsblood
/use Wild Steelbloom
/use Dreaming Glory
/use Goldclover
/use Icethorn
/use Mana Thistle

Creature of habit

I am very much a creature of habit or I run on auto pilot sometimes. There are times when I am driving someplace and the destination takes the same path that I take to work. I will catch myself trying to finish the route to work and almost miss the path to my target destination. I eat at the same place almost every day. It's a fast food place 1/2 block from work. I also refill my drink as I leave every time.


Today I walked out the door and could not remember if I just filled up my drink or not. I look at the drink and it is full so I must have done that. Then I remember that I did the exact same thing the day before. So I let my mind wonder about other time I have done that or other things I do that with.

A few weeks ago, that was how I ran my glyphs. Total auto pilot. I ran a tight schedule for so long that it became part of my day. Next thing I knew every thing I did to make glyphs was mindless and just doing the motions. I am off that schedule now but I could easily fall back into it. That had a big part to play in how I could keep such a big glyph opperation going for so long.


I remember talking about it to my wife about what I was doing. I basicly said I was spending more time doing this than anyone else possibly could. A good deal of the time was 1/2 afk.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Abyssal Shatter Profit Calculation

WoWenomics just posted some Abyssal Shatter Test Results. I wish I knew the abyssal crystal market better so I could do some solid math on it. So I have no clue if they are profitable to shatter on my server. But I do know the cost of the other mats and can guess the break even point.

Using the numbers over at WoWenomics, I came up with this calculation.

ID * 9.79 * .3047 + CE * 2.99 * .6953 = Abyssal break even value

For ID, CE, and Abyssal use the market price for the item. Infinite dust is 4.5g, Cosmic Essence is 15g, and I do not know the Abyssal crystal price. If I put those numbers in to the equation, it puts my abyssal crystal value at 44.6G. That sounds very close to what I think it should be.

If you get GE from the shatter, its average value is 44.85g. If you get ID from the shatter, its average value is 44.06g. I found that very interesting that it balanced that well.

Remember these values are per per server. So plug your values into the calculation for yourself.