Wait for it....

So, this week is when I officially switched from selling to buying.  This is of course extremely anecdotal and based only on my server (and furthermore, on my minimal playtime), but I get the feeling that now is the appropriate time to bargain hunt in order to get ready for December 7th.  I think many of the players that were hanging on to raiding, PvP, etc. a few weeks after 4.0.1 are now in "break mode."  We've seen the new talents in action, have a sense for what's coming, and I just don't see as much activity from people buying stuff or even playing.  And certainly not the higher margin enchants, gems, etc. that have been my bread and butter.  I also think that the pre-expansion bank emptying process is underway, in some regards, so bargains abound.

Timing is everything, and while there's some margin for error, I'll definitely be scouring for the items I mentioned before -- and those listed by many other great blog guides -- to fill up my bank before Cataclysm.  Based on looking at some of the blogs on my blogroll, it looks like a few folks out there have been burned by speculative items/rep grinding, so I feel for them but view it as validation (to some small extent) for my pretty boring AH existence.

Anyhow, as far as value items (measured by price-per-slot), abyss crystals are darn cheap right now.  Maybe it's people DE'ing their old gear as part of wrapping up this expansion, maybe it's people buying the honor PvP shield and DE'ing it (something I'm not a fan of, by the way).  Either way, I bought a ton of crystals at 17g the past few days.  It varies, sure, but overall these and other enchanting materials seem to be declining.

Bring it on, I say.  Holding onto abyss crystals is virtually no-risk, as you can just shatter them and sell the mats if needed as there will undoubtedly be a sufficient market in Cataclysm.  The functional lack of deposit fees is also a reason I love enchanting mats or scrolls.  Rare-quality gems have been a time/money sink lately, and I'll likely just cut and vendor the bulk of my piles leftover from the past few months.  N.B. the shatter-to-profit point has been made by others, again I'm not trying to plagiarize.  It's just an illustration of timing the market to increase future earnings.  Buy low, sell high, right?

As an aside, I've been working on leveling a shaman and really love it.  I actually enjoy healing more on the shaman than my paladin at the moment.  My shaman, by sheer coincidence, is also on the server of another respected gold blogger, so it's fun to watch an expert in action from the sidelines.  Still, it's all time-killing until I dust off the pally in December.

Happy hunting!

The next step in WoW profiteering

Ok, so this post will be a bit off-the-wall, and I'm hoping more to generate comments than anything else. The gold blog community is awash in amazing posts right now with detailed lists on items to stockpile, items to dump, items to flip, and items to avoid. I can't say it enough, that's awesome. I would not describe my forte as being able to track down or even analyze item-related trends. I don't have the time or focus.

However, something that I've been mulling for a while and has been recently quasi-confirmed, is how the future of true WoW profit will arise. To somewhat cartoon it a bit, I think there are three main levels within the WoW economy:

Commodities or "origination"
This is the bread and butter of trade in WoW. Ore, leather, etc. Ok, we all get that. You originate the materials.

Value add items
This is the second tier of production, where a commodity is modified to add value. Cutting a raw gem is a fine example, or crafting blacksmithing items. If the commodity business is the bread and butter, this is the meat and potatoes (geesh, sorry, I'm writing this while Horde is finishing another lopsided loss in Wintergrasp). No explanation needed, really.

Derivative profiteering
Most auctioneers fall into this category, on a small scale. Identify disequilibrium, profit, etc. No lecture needed for this part. HOWEVER, here's where it gets interesting. For a few months now, I've wondered when someone would string it all together and try to run an actual business in WoW. This is a truly derivative activity, and I'm not aware of it being done yet. It could take the form of insurance/annuities, or even basic savings/investment management (i.e., some poor soul who doesn't like to farm and is afraid of the AH gives you his hard earned 1k gold and you agree to pay interest on it or invest it and take a cut of the profit). The issues of collateral and counterparty risk are significant enough that I can see why this isn't common. I have read a few blurbs about it existing in another online game, but again I don't have time to research it and I'm not sure if it's an apples to apples comparison.

When I saw a post on another blog highlighting a new pay-based "remote auction house bot" that allows you to use the remote AH to buy/flip items, I thought two things: "uh oh" and "oh boy." I do not use this addon, nor can I see myself doing so. However, I think this is a watershed event. The program itself turns AHers into, essentially, day traders. Granted, the 200/day post limit is still hard-wired by Blizz, but I hope the significance of this is apparent...

Anyhow, I don't have any answers, and as stated originally I view this post as one long question. The comments I've received on this blog so far have been insightful and intelligent, so how do YOU feel about these developments? Where is WoW heading re: finance? Are there any true banks in WoW that you know of, and if not how long will it be?

Saronite Shuffle Redux in Cata?

What I don't know could fill a library (or a blog?), but I do know that Blizz likes to repeat themselves quite a bit throughout WoW and that there are definitely observable cycles w/r/t crafting and professions.  Waaaay back before this blog existed, or many others for that matter, I found that you could prospect saronite, craft some cheapo rings, disenchant them, and sell the dust for tons of gold (back when stacks of dust would go for amounts that would make your mother gasp).  I know others did it first, and I was hardly a trendsetter in the saronite shuffle -- it would be ridiculous for me to be such a revisionist -- but it made me enough to get a Traveler's Tundra Mammoth in very casual fashion. 

My problem back then was that I wasn't greedy enough, or I was too risk averse.  I stumbled upon a real gold maker and was too stupid to capitalize fully.  I'll likely write about this topic if I participate in the upcoming JMTC blog carnival, but I was happy enough just conservatively working toward the mammoth and once I got it I stopped the shuffle.

So, flash forward the better part of two years, and I'm thinking "hmmm, what will the saronite shuffle be in Cataclysm?"  I checked out the Cata version of wowhead to just sniff around a bit, and three items.  Full disclosure on a few points here: 1) if someone has posted this on another blog before, I apologize.  I haven't seen it, but it's extremely likely someone wrote about this ages ago.  2) I've only just started researching this superficially, i.e., about 5 minutes of time invested.  3) I'm very likely wrong!

That said, the items that raised my eyebrows were:
Hessonite Band
Alicite Pendant
Jasper Ring

Now, I don't see any disenchant info, but these are BoE rings made by combining a cheap vendor item (or so the comments say) along with some uncommon quality gems that are prospected from the beginning ore in Cataclysm.  Sound roughly familiar?

This, my friends, has saronite shuffle redux written all over it.  I'll vet this further in the near future, but assuming the cycles alluded to above run their course again, keep a very close eye on things.  The initial rush won't be an opportune time, as ore will be too costly, but once supply and demand balance out a bit I'd be prepared to go all in on this.