Give me a challenge!

I'm bored...

Yea, being stuck with a poorly designed dungeon for months at a time has taken its toll on me. Because let's face it. As a caster we have one of the easiest jobs in the world. To sum it up here's a guide to being a succesful casting raider in Trial of the (G)Crusader:

1. Learn your rotation

2. Dont stand in x/stand in x

3. Know your kill priority.

Granted, some casters are easier off than others. Arcane Mages have one of the most mindless rotations I've ever laid my eyes upon while affliction warlocks do require a bit of timing and practice if you want to squeeze everything out of your abilities. But my point is that even a tunnelvisioning idiot can be a somewhat succesful player in this place, hell he might even do pretty good.

Ulduar stands as a shining example of what I expect from Blizzard. Fights varying massively in

difficulty, the choice to turn it up a notch by going with a keeper less or pressing that shiny red button all adds up to an instance where both the idiots and the great players will find themselves

amused for countless hours.

Oh, how I loved Ulduar. 2 fights in particular stand out as far as me being a caster goes. Yogg+1 and Firefighter. Both fights required for me to constantly think on my feet - Controlling the fire, managing your distance to the rest of the raid all the while maintaining your maxDPS. And Yogg Saron simply has enough special abilities for it to remain one of the 2 greatest fights in wotlk history.

If there's one thing I believe should be a main concern of the developing team it's the fact that in

pretty much every single encounter, healers are the ones that are "worst" off.

To show you guys what I mean I chose to use my legendary paint skills to visualize the process from the first time you meet a boss 'till the attempt where it falls to the ground!

As clearly shown on the graph to the left, tanks

and DPS reach the point where they're "ready" to kill the boss way sooner than our beloved healers.

It shows my estimate of the progress of each team on average while fighting a boss of x difficulty.

The perfect encounter in my eyes is when f(x) = g(x) = q(x). When each of the roles are - more or less - equal in difficulty to each other.

Every once in a blue moon Blizzard really manages to hit the spot and create an encounter that, in my eyes, is perfect. And it's the moments where my team mate and I overcome these challenges that keeps me from deleting this game.

Total Domination!

My old nemesis is back. Awesomeman has risen from the dead meaning last night I suddenly had 406 undercut auctions needing relisting. Basically what happenes was, I let the prices on the glyphs stay too high for too long. Needless to say the market suddenly looked very lucrative to old-timers/newcomers and before I knew it I was competing with twice as many players.

I needed a plan. I was sick and tired of just going with the flow, letting the cycle run its course(49g, letting the AH Campers slowly drag the prices down by undercutting eachother 7-8 times a day untill we reach my threshold 3g) and in general not being as dominant on the market as I had hoped. I then remembered Debussy mentioning some very exciting tactic where he would basically put up an artificial wall. Either he was posting at a decent profit, or he'd post at his minimal threshold.

Example:

Debussy: Lists his glyphs at 29g.(fallback or undercutting)

AH-Camper: Cancels/Relists all of his glyphs at 28g99s99c.

Debussy:Cancels his glyphs at 29g. Relists at 3g.

AH-Camper: Either relists his glyphs at 2g99s99c or avoids the market untill the prices are back up.

Now.If the AH Camper relists his glyphs at 2g99s99c he won't mind. There is absolutely no incentive to work the part of the market that is below 3g unless youre deliberately trying to "win" an arbitrary battle. I don't care about my competitors in that way. If they "win" by keeping their glyphs below 3g - so be it. I make more money/hour doing other stuff.

It's been 24 hours since I started doing this Huge success so far ;) I'll update this post later on tonight with the numbers for todays profits.

UPDATE

As promised, here are today's numbers...

/Lite

7-Day Sum Up

Nothing philosophical today. Just an update of my thoughts, how I'm doing overall and a sneak peak in my tiny bank.

First of all, business is good as usual. I woke up today with 1000g worth of Successful auctions in the bank.

Prices on glyphs at the moment are - to sa

y the least - spikey. As you can see on the screenie, Im selling some at 4g whereas others I am selling for 30-45g. I have allowed the prices to stay insanely high for a few days now because I have been making alot of money

because of it. But as I suspected the increase in prices has also increased my competitors online tim

e demaning me to relist more often than before. Maybe it's time for me to pull out the ol' carpet bomb and scare them away again. Will keep you posted.

To the right of me you will see yet another 7 day look at my incomings and outgoings.

I have spent a bit of coin gemming up my paladin and giving my dk a flying start but other than that it's just been investments mostly. "Reconcilliation" is the money I've picked up from the mailbox while logged on with my laptop and the reason I have 2627g incoming from the Guild Bank is because I am supplying the guild with flasks, feasts and whatnot. So basically whatever I've gotten from the Gbank be sure to substract that from my Auction House outgoings :)

Earning 10k a week seems just fine for now. I am still stocking up for 3.3 and that will - hopefully - really be the major bump towards my 100k that I have been looking for.

Last here's a look at what I have s

natched up and hoping to sell during the first few weeks of 3.3

I am at nearly:

800x Heavy Borean Leather

250x Frost Lotus

71xFlask of the Frost Wyrm(Another 100 in AH)

and 100xInfinite Dust

Im reaching my stocking point. Another 200 Heavy Leather, and another 50 Frost Lotus and I'll be put it to and end.

On another note I got contacted today by a herber who asked me if I wanted to buy his Frost Lotus for 45g a piece. I accepted and seized the opportunity asking him if he wanted to supply me with herbs on a steady basis. So it seems I can add yet another "worker" to my roster. Yay

for me!

That's all for today. My other bankalt, Banklite has been MIA on the Auction House because Ive found it very amusing to play with him. About to turn lvl 65!

/Lite

P.S

If you haven't tried Dragon Age: Origins, go do so - Now! It is Legendary!

The Sacrifices of an Officer

DISCLAIMER: I am currently in a very sleep deprived state. The following is most likely riddled with grammatical errors and general typos. Proceed with caution!

Hello again! I know it's been a few days since the last time I updated my blog so here's sort of a combined post to make up for lost time.

Kanro, my fellow guildie, suggested that I talk a bit about being an officer in a somewhat serious raiding guild and I thought to myself; "Why the hell not".
I am guessing that the vast majority of you guys have at some point during your WoW carreer been part of the administration of a guild. Maybe you formed a leveling guild once, or you tried to start up a raiding guild. Maybe it took off, maybe it crashed and burned.

The way I see it, I have 3 major motivational factors in my life. I'm not saying I never do things if not motivated by these 3 factors - I am just saying that probably 9 out of 10 of my actions are caused by them
The factors of which I am speaking are of course Sex, power and the safety/well-being of my family. The first and the last are subjects to be discussed another day but the second one, power, I think is essential to the topic today.

Power. I crave it. You probably crave it in some form as well. And if you don’t you’re probably either a) lying to yourself or b) simply not an alpha male. I’ve always enjoyed being the one in charge. Ever since grammar school I loved the fact that I got to choose who to team up with on the soccer field. This carried on into my way of playing the World of Warcraft.
I have been in multiple guilds where the officers did not approve of my attitude – Hell, I’ve even failed a trial where the reasoning was “You’re a great player but your attitude is all wrong” and to be frank I do not blame them. I’m only a good team player as long as I have a say in what is going on and what is going to happen. Do you know the feeling?

The tasks of an officer are many and in Finding Emo(my guild) we have a set of assignments that each of our officers perform specifically along with whatever pops up during a week. These tasks include but are not limited to:

- The Bank Master. The person making sure that we always have enough potions, flasks and fish feasts for whatever raiding may occur during the week. In addition he is also the person you contact regarding guild loans, enchanting materials and so on and so forth. Not everything goes through him but he has the main responsibility.

- The Raid Leader. You all know him. The guy who either keeps a very firm and calm voice throughout the entire raid or the guy yelling at you for not knowing what the fuck to do(Yes, I am a fan of Wipe Club). An essential and in no way an easy task. In many cases filled by the GM himself as this guy usually is regarded as the most powerful person in a guild.

- The Guild Mother. Whiners and flamers.
This is the guy you turn to if you’re in dire need of venting. The members of a guild will from time to time – not unlike any other working environment – cause drama. Loot hornyness, whining or clowning around during a raid, someone stole your girlfriend and you’re sure it’s that annoying warlock from your guild. All of this can and will cause a very tense atmosphere in the guild chat if not properly taken care of. Our Guild Mother is our venting machine(see what I did there?). He is the guy who smoothes out any discussion, and brings whatever serious matter we have onto the /officer chat where appropriate matters can be decided on.

- Recruitment Officer. Handles the advertisement of whatever class or spec the guild is in need of. /2 spamming, Posting on MMO-Champion and WoW-Europe.com and making sure the world knows that WE NEED HEALERS! Whenever an application is received its fate is decided by all of the officers. Delivering the “Hello Player x. You have failed/passed and we have decided (not)to grant you a trial. Here is why….*snip* “ is also the task of the recruitment officer and letting the trialist know throughout the process, where he needs to improve and where he is doing well, is one of his most honored tasks. Invaluable to ensure the success of any progress raiding guild.

These tasks combined with all the other problems an officer has to deal with on a daily basis may seem like a lot. Fortunately we are many to perform the tasks but still – why do we do it? We don’t have any special rights, loot priorities of other benefits. Well let me tell you why. We do it because we love helping the fellow man. We do it because performing a job and knowing that we did something good in the world simply fuels our life spark.

…..Oh I’m sorry I just couldn’t keep this up with a straight face.

No. No No. We do this because we like what being an officer gives us. It gives us power. We have the power to determine the fate of the guild. We do it because we enjoy the fact that our members look to us for answers – Because if anyone has them – It’s us. No “ordinary” member is gonna stand up and yell “Tonight we’re gonna focus all of our efforts on getting me a drake!”. An officer however can stand up and tell the entire guild to move to Icecrown – And they will. Because that’s just how it works.

Now, I’ve probably made sure that every single reader here will never want to have me as an officer in their guild. But allow me to explain before you light up your torches and locate your pitchforks. A very wise man once told me. “Litemode. With great power comes great responsibility.”
And he was right. You simply cannot just abuse your guild. You may feel like telling all the casters in the raid to pass on that very special trinket because you feel like you’ve earned it. But you can be damn sure that if you do this, and your guild consists of players who vary just a tiny bit from mindless sheep, you’re gonna get your ass handed to you. Members will flock out and soon you won’t be able to gather up enough players to get a heroic dungeon going.

My point is this. Any good officer has to earn his respect. You simply cannot assume the role of a leader and assume that everyone will jump if you say jump. If you’ve done nothing to earn their dedication and respect you shouldn’t count on them. The bottom line is that in whatever task you have as an officer they all require trust. If you want an all-access pass to the guild bank you better have a 100% secure account and a flawless reputation on your realm as far as handling loot and gold goes. Same goes for the Raid leader. Who would want a raid leader known to yell at his healers for no apparent reason and blame anyone but himself for the wipes of a raid.

Should you fail at earning this respect, fail at upholding the promises you make – Chances are you will soon find yourself without that officer rank you loved so much. Or even worse, without a guild tag.

/Litemode

Wednesday is Flask Day.

Not much to add today. I've realized that trying to control the prices of Frost Lotus is harder than first expected.

I have managed to sort of stabilize the prices at 55g/ea but in order for me to keep this up I need to spend 2-3000g each day buying out the herbs from the late night herbers. I will still be buying herbs whenever they get too cheap or if I see an opportunity to bump them way up for a relatively low amount of gold, but right now I am just trying to make a profit off of the goods I have acquired so far while still maintaining a good stock for 3.3.

That's all for today.

Today's Profit: 4306g

/Lite

Egomaniacs

My blog entry today will revolve around humans and their fundamental egotistical behaviour.

If you know me in real life or have met my ingame avatar there is a very good chance that you have classified me as either a) an arrogant S.O.A.B, b) an egotistical maniac, or c) a provocative elitist.
Long ago, I came to terms with the fact that I did a whole lot of "pissing people off". When I was a kid I always got myself into fights, I spent alot of my time taking "timeouts" during class in primary school and when I'm at the local pub or at a club it is not unusual that people threaten to kick my ass.

So now that we have this settled it's time for me to move on to the issue I wanted to discuss with you guys. Are you ready?
YOU ARE ALSO AN EGOTISTICAL MANIAC!

Yea, you heard me. You are, as much as I am, an ego monster lurking around, craving your next meal to feed your ego addiction. The following is a list of things I consider nothing but different ways of feeding that ego of yours in the World of Warcraft:
- Recognition from your peers when you flaunt your fully ilvl 258 kitted warrior of destruction in WoW.
- Showing off the fact that you just completed what you consider a major feat in the game(Achievements in particular but something as boring as reaching level 60 also counts)
- Being the "Go To Guy" in the guild who everyone loves.
Hell, even performing generous acts such as donating gold to a friend in need, boosting him through that low level instance because he asked you nicely is still nothing but an action feeding that ego addiction of yours.

A few days ago I posted a comment to The Greedy Goblin which I think fits nicely to todays theme

You seem to under the impression that
being a social = having low self esteem.
I've been reading you blog for a few months now and lately I've seen more and more of the "Anyone but me constantly seeks validation by being "special in the form of a) having the best gear, b) having the rarest vanity pets/mounts or c) Being super friendly and helpful

I am, to some extent, a social. I also seek validation, but by my peers(although admittedly I do not believe many to be of equal "raiding value" to me).
Whenever I meet a raider who manages to pull off the same dps as me, have the same situational awareness as I do or whatever, I automatically start seeking his or hers validation. I want the best of the best to realize that I am in fact one of them. I don't care how big an idiot he or she is. I just need the person to feed my ego.
The point I am trying to get through is that we're all socials. We're all egomaniacs seeking validation in different ways because - as you probably already know - our only difference lies in "what" soothes our ego.

You're a social, I am a social. Whether you want to admit it or not you love the validation you get from your blog, you enjoy your fanboys looking up to you and I bet you even love the players getting all riled up whenever you post something they disagree with.

You are a social.

So, Gevlon never responded to my post and I do not expect him to. But I do think I have a point with all of this.

Being egoistic simply means that you're human. I am sick and tired of hearing people refer to egoism as the evil in us. It's what makes the world function. If we didn't have people striving on helping others, donating their hard earned money left and right, the poor and "weak" would simply wither and die. And if we did not have people craving the to be acknowledged amongst the very brightest minds, technology would simply reach a screeching halt.

/Lite

Socials and Elitism

Edit: Didn't have much to add for today's blog entry. I do have something delicious in store for tomorrows blogging though so stay tuned.

Today's Profit : 3545g

Since the beginning of the world(of Warcraft) the war between the casuals and the elites has been an ongoing battle.
Casuals wanting the game accessible to them. The Elites wanting to stay elite.

The main argument of the casuals has always been that they were paying the same amount of money each month to play the game, so why shouldn't they be allowed to enjoy the same content.
The issue with that very statement is(or should be) as clear as day. Did Nintendo pay you back a percentage of your money spent when you couldn't finish Zelda? Are you gonna complain to the bar owner when you go home alone after seing the other guys at the bar getting it on with this and that girl? I mean, you DID pay the same entry fee and you bought the same beers he did!

The answer is no, and do you want to know why? This world does not revolve around the casuals or as I like to refer to them, the weak. If you want to succeed at anything worth succeeding at you're gonna need to put in a healthy portion of dedication. Elitism, egotistical behaviour or whatever you would like to call it is always gonna be the fundamental element in an evergrowing world. The best will be chosen as the leaders of the free world, the smartest will get rewarded with the best rewards.

Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen!

- Sean Connery, The Rock

Unfortunately for people like me, we have started to cater for the casuals, the slackers and the idiots. I live in Denmark, with a welfare system that ensures that nobody will ever go to bed hungry, if you're not batshit retarded you will have a roof over your head and the system will even make sure you have a job. Even if you fail at that they will keep your head afloat with social security. All paid for by the elites of our country.

I will try to not get too political here but I need to get this point through. The mentality that "Even the slackers will make it" is unhealthy to the world. It's like an evergrowing parasite leeching off of the world. Why should the elites work harder to make more money if their own personal gain from doing so is minimal? Why is there no "punishment" for slacking off for the majority of your life?

/Lite

P.S
Im'a post my gold related blog entry sometime tonight. This isn't it! ;)

Borean Leather and the fight for the Flask Market!

I don't really know how to feel about today's auctioneering. I spent the first few hours wrestling with Auctioneer and ended up losing most of my database. Fortunately I am, at the moment, not that attached to it as I have a pretty good idea of what I am willing to pay for each of the items I stock up on daily.

I have now spent a total of 16.000g on Frost Lotus and Flasks of the Frost Wyrm. It seems that every time I raise the floor on the market someone dumps a load and smashes the prices back down. I haven't given up yet and so far I'm still seing as an investment with a promising future. I have, however, stopped buying flasks and am now only buying Frost lotus beneath my threshold(54g). Some of my competitors have been complaining about the high prices of frost lotus on the AH which made me really happy and it tells me that they don't have as many materials stocked up as I was dreading.

On another note I am closing in on 600xHeavy Borean Leather. Buying all stacks of Borean Leather @ 8,5g/stack and hopefully flipping them with a decent profit @ 3.3 is gonna fun.

Today's best news is clearly that I woke up and wasn't undercut on more than a couple of glyphs. After about a month of fighting it seems that the vast majority of my competitors have thrown in the towel, realizing that I was here to say, and I'm hoping on a couple of weeks of glyph domination :)

Today's numbers:

Liquid Wealth : 39.852g
Total Wealth : 57.269g

/Lite.

Herbs, Flasks and taking a stand.

Hello again. Today I woke up late and while scanning the Auction House I realized how the prices of Flasks have been consistently ranging from 29-33g since me and my mate entered the market while frost lotus had been jumping up and down from 50-70g.

Today I decided that I was time for the flask market to once again become the glorious moneymaking machinery it once was and bought out all the Flask of the Frost Wyrm available on the Auction House at low prices. After finishing up there I went and bought pretty much every single reasonably priced frost lotus as well ending up with a total of:
83 x Frost Lotus
145 x Flask of the Frost Wyrm.

I realize that this move may not give me any real profit for the next couple of weeks but I am positive that once 3.3 hits we'll see a staggering increase in the demand of flasks so regardless of the outcome I just managed to heavily increase my stock as we wait patiently for Icecrown.
What I just need to keep reminding myself is to be persistent, but not to a degree where I just keep piling money in the trunk of my competition. I think this is a great opportunity for me to get to know my competitors. Are there any major players represented in my realm? How will they react to my move? And how can I use information gathered in the future? I will spend the rest of the day/night online with a friend of mine, getting drunk and going "cool story bro!" every minute or so. Hopefully I will have a clear(er) picture of the market by the end of this week.
On top of my stacking up on flasks and herbs I am - ofcourse - also keeping a healthy supply of inks and pigments. The last thing I am buying large amounts of at the moment is Borean Leather which I am consistently turning into Heavy Borean Leather, ready to trade it in for loads and loads of Arctic Fur for patch day. either that or i just sell the leather at hyper inflated prices.


What are you stocking up on?

/Lite

Hai(An Introduction)

Hai everyone.

The name is Litemode of Azjol Nerub EU and I'm here to tell you a story.

A little over a month ago I was in Ulduar with my guild on our weekly run through the hardmodes acquiring Proto Drakes for new recruits and alts. We'd had a bad night and I was gonna go repair before our Algalon hour started. To my great surprise I did not have the necessary gold to pay for my repairs and had to borrow money from a guildie of mine... Embarrassing and in no way fitting behaviour for an officer of a successful raiding guild. At that point I decided to never again be in need of gold and after the raid I cashed in all of my Emblems of Triumph for Crusader Orbs and started hanging around in the trade channel trying t

o get rid of them. A few days later I had ~10.000g, and with this amount I decided to start my gold making business.

Break time. First a little bit about myself. As previously stated

I play a character called Litemode. I'm a 22 year old guy from Denmark currently on my first semester on my road to becoming an IT Engineer. World of Warcraft is my first MMO ever and having played since the open beta of WoW Classic I regard myself as both highly skilled and knowledgeable in pretty much every PVE aspect of this game. I am currently an officer in the "Strict-10-man" guild, Finding Emo where we recently managed to get [Tribute to Dedicated Insani

ty]. But enough about that. So what is this blog gonna be all about?

Well first and foremost it's going to be a chronicle of my experiences while online focusing mainly on my endevours of

reaching the gold cap.

Secondly I am gonna use this blog to ask the blogging community of their opinions of recently announced changes/implementations to the game as we get closer and closer to 3.3 and Cataclysm.

As seen on my auditor on the right I am slowly closing in on the 50.000 milestone which is kind of a big deal for me. I've rarely ever had more than 10.000g on any account combined so naturally I am really looking forward to this.

I spent alot of time of time trying to come up with a proper name for this blog, I am in no way creative and thinking of clever puns is not a great forcé of mine. But the entire point - from a soon-to-be goblin point of view - is that I don't have a degree in economy. I don't spend hour after hour thinking about how i can maximize my gold/hour ratio, nor do I condemn the players who choose to do so. I just use my instincts and basic logic trying to make money, i craft then its profitable, buy stuff when it's cheap and resell once the prices have settled. I even fly about herbing a few hours a week. It's all about not getting bored and constantly finding new ways to make gold.

I don't use a specific method of earning gold. I do however have certain rituals which at least ensures me a minimum income/day. I have 4 lvl 80's all of them with more or less maximized proffesions. These include:

Druid : Herbalism/Alchemy

Paladin: Jewelcrafting/Mining

Warlock:Inscription/Tailoring

Rogue: Leatherworking/Skinning

Every day I transmute an epic gem from my druid's alchemy, I create my Icy Prism with my Paladin's jc, and every 4th day I spend my tailoring cooldowns(Buying the mats whenever they're cheap off the ah). I am well represented on the Glyph Market, and stock up on glyphs on a daily basis, relisting 2-4 times a day. I don't bother with the market if the prices plummet to the ground but I never set a specific threshold. sometimes I feel like being represented at any market above 6g. Sometimes i drop it to 4g. It's all about how cutthroat you feel like playing the market. At some point though, I simply drop it and wait for the prices to climb back up(and the always do).

One of my main incomes remain at the flaskmaking business. My supplier sends me batches of herbs at preset prices and i turn these herbs into either inks or flasks. If you have a bit of starting capital I highly recommend finding someone to supply you with herbs below market price.

Another way of making money is novelty items. Pets, Orbs of Deception, Rituals of the new Moon, tuxedo's etcetera are easy money and usually really low on material costs. Hatchlings are fairly easy to obtain. Look it up on wowhead and see the fastest route to checking each of the spawning points on Azeroth.

/2 is a powerful tool. Use it to advertise the items you're selling, and don't be like the thousands of other players in there. Spice your messages up a bit. Here's an example of how I sell my Rituals of the New Moon.

/2 Embrace your inner Worgen! Get your [Rituals of the New Moon] today off the auction house and turn into 1 of 5 different types of pure WOLF POWER!

I have yet to use this macro without seing "A buyer has been found for your auction of [Rituals of the New Moon]" shortly after.

I will end today's blog with a quick mentioning of the addons I use for gold-specific purposes.

Auctioneer

Quick Auctions 2

Auditor

Skillet

So that's it for today. Stay tuned if you want to keep on following me on my road to the gold cap!

Regards,

Lite