Posts with tag making-money

Last week we discussed a set of achievements likely to drive the average player to the poorhouse. This week, in the spirit of consoling people who may not necessarily have a Traveler's Tundra Mammoth in their immediate future, I'd like to present a series of 5 achievements where at least one of the following is true:

• They're an unusual means of making gold in a way people wouldn't necessarily expect, or:
• It would be almost impossible not to make a pile of gold while doing them.

Now, a disclaimer; the most obvious picks here would be achievements like Got My Mind On My Money or The Bread Winner, but they're more a record of your previous looting and questing rather than being something you really have to go for consciously. I'm on the lookout for slightly more interesting ways to grow rich from achievements that are not so directly concerned with moneymaking:

I just posted a little while back that the Darkmoon Faire needed a change, but apparently there's still some benefit to be had over there -- Valdesta of WoWGrrl has found at least one way to keep the Faire interesting. She's been keeping a character over there, apparently, and periodically checking in on what the vendors have. They sell not only little pets and miscellaneous items like the Heavy Leather Ball (which often sell for a tidy profit on the AH, since people aren't always aware that the Faire vendors sell them), but there are also vendors there who sell profession items like herbs, motes, eternals, leathers, and so on.

And as anyone who's ever levelled a profession knows, those are often worth their weight in gold, not just on the AH, but in terms of leveling up your own alt professions as well. As Valdesta says, it's worth camping an alt over there just to check in during raiding downtime or on a flight path with your other character, for the same reason you should always check and see just what other vendors around the world might have for sale -- sure, you won't make much with just one buy, but over time, picking up cheap crafting mats from the DF can lead to some solid profits on the AH.

Wikia has been doing a little bit of press lately -- they're the for-profit company that has spun off of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation that runs the huge Wikipedia website. Wikia has announced, as reported in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, that they've hit profit early. While they didn't expect to actually make any money running ads next to user-generated content until next year, they've actually made some money this year already. They credit the growth of all of their miniwiki sites, which has expanded greatly over the last year.

So why are we reporting all of this here? You may have already guessed: one of their largest sites, if not the largest, is the World of Warcraft-related wiki, WoWWiki (which we definitely read and use here at WoW.com all the time). WoWWiki is mentioned in a few reports as having 70,000 pages (almost 1/3 more than the next-biggest site in the network, a cooking wiki). In fact, at least one reports credits WoWWiki, along with the Twilight-related wiki, for the growth entirely. We're not sure how much of a part they actually played in the new reported profits, but they are definitely growing, and are a terrific resource for those of us in the WoW community.

The OC Register has a great breakdown of what Activision said on their earnings conference call today. Perhaps the biggest WoW-related stat to come out of the call is that the number of subscribers to the game has apparently leveled off: they're holding steady at 11.5 million. Which is nothing to cough at, but it's what we were told four months ago, and if, as Ghostcrawler claimed, the numbers are still going up, then they're going up very, very slowly. Morhaime says that numbers are growing everywhere, but that China will be a main focus of growth this year as Wrath of the Lich King releases there soon.

In non-WoW Blizzard news, the Starcraft 2 beta will start this summer and will be the "final" phase of development for that game. The new Battle.net interface will be tested then as well, so keep an eye out for that. And Blizzard expects big things there in China also -- NetEase, the company that will now be handling Wrath's launch, is already set up to run both Diablo III and Starcraft 2 out there, so it'll all be under one umbrella.

In short, there's no really bad news from Blizzard, but no really great news either -- the best news to come out of the call is that even in the slow economy lately, Blizzard is holding steady. Not a bad thing at all, but we probably won't see any spikes in player interest in Blizzard or WoW until they announce what's next on the content plate, whether that be at BlizzCon or before.

Well, The9 is going down in flames, but if you're looking to make some money in the stock market lately, you could do like BRK and buy some stock in Activision-Blizzard. Goldman Sachs has upgraded ATVI to "buy," and even marked them out as a "conviction buy" -- while the stock price is almost $11 right now (it jumped up about .75 on this news this morning), GS says it's headed to $14 eventually. "Conviction buy" just means that the wily traders at Goldman Sachs expect the stock to outperform in the future -- Activision is already saying it will do well, but GS thinks it'll do even better.

Medievaldragon over at WorldofWar.net points out that there may still be trouble ahead: while Blizzard has gone with Netease for their service in China, they still have to make it past the Chinese government's approval process, and there may actually be service outages if things aren't approved quickly. But that won't affect Activision's business very much, and given that the company still has a bright future (even in a harsh economy), picking up a few shares is probably a relatively good investment.

Please note: I am not a financial expert, and none of this should be taken as serious financial advice. You invest in the stock market and any other financial institution at your own risk. If you're getting stock tips from WoW Insider, it's probably better to keep your money in your pocket. AH tips, on the other hand...

If America's bankers want to get back into Moneytown, apparently they could do a lot worse than designing a hit MMO -- a study by a group named Screen Digest says that the MMO market is hotter than ever. After dropping down to a total of $701 million in 2008, games like World of Warcraft are seeing their revenues rise again, up to a total of $1.4 billion. And not surprisingly, WoW is still leading the charge -- while their overall market share is dropping very slightly, from 60% of the market down to around 58%, they're still making more money than ever. And while other games are picking up some numbers, according to Screen Digest, they're not really stealing players from Azeroth -- they're actually pulling new MMO players in.

Which is understandable -- during times of economic downturn, online games like MMOs are actually positioned to do very well. Why spend $15 on one night at the movies when you can spend it on a whole month of entertainment? World of Warcraft may have brought the MMO monster to the surface, but according to numbers like these, this is a game genre that's going to be extremely popular (and profitable) for a long time to come.

We had a little bit of everything on this week's WoW Insider Show. We got down and dirty with Ulduar details, as Michael Sacco walked us through all of fhe bosses he'd done so far on the PTR. Turpster and I got a little silly for the fans (unfortunately, the song is stlll yet to come, but I'll reiterate: it'll be worth the wait), we told a kid how important it is to stay in school, and we even snuck in some good advice on how to make some money fast ingame.

You can listen to last week's show, as always, on any or all of the links below, and be sure to send us an email at theshow@wow.com if you've got any feedback you'd like to share. Don't forget, too, that there is no show next Saturday -- instead, we're going to be recording the podcast live on Wednesday night at 9pm EST over on the Ustream page, so if you've never had the chance to hear the show before, this'll be your opportunity to tune in and listen live. We'll return back to our normal time on Saturday, March 21st.

In the meantime, enjoy the show.

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Kebina Trudough here, offering you the best gold making secrets they don't want you to know about! I was like you once, poor and homely, before I discovered my patented system. Now you too can fill your pockets with the good stuff without ever breaking a sweat! Why spend all your time toiling when you could be vacationing in the Hot Springs? I'm not offering these tips for 100 gold, or 90 gold, or even 50 gold! No, not even 20 gold! My system is yours for FREE! Satisfaction guaranteed or I'll give you a full refund (handling charges may apply).

Today, I'm going to help you make the most out of your questing experience. The most gold, that is! Quests often reward hard-working Azerothians with items that are useless to them.

The items are usually peddled off to a vendor at a price of their choosing.

When given a choice of rewards, how do you decide which item to select? Some players pick at random, or because the item has an interesting name or looks cool. Some think that they have figured out the rules, and always pick plate over mail and weaponry over armor.

What the average citizen doesn't know is that there's a complex, hidden system. It's practically a Goblin-Vendor cover-up, but I'm here to end all that.

Goblin Rules of Acquisition, subsection K4, under the heading, Quest Rewards.

I have a few alts on an RP realm that I visit from time to time, and I remember thinking to myself at one point: "These characters are a bunch of deadbeats." I'd gotten too used to the alts on my main realm being a bunch of pampered brats, spoiled rotten by the presence of a hardworking main, so financial discipline had grown to be a thing of the past.

Not so on another realm where you don't have a main, and I realized that unless I went back to a few monetary basics, my alts would wind up dancing naked on mailboxes in pursuit of gold. This is a fine tactic with a long and storied history, but when your most promising alt is a level 16 Undead Mage, you're up the proverbial creek. No one wants to see a rotting, naked corpse.

So I started not being a deadbeat, and it was with surprise and delight that I logged on to find the little tyke sitting on a pretty respectable pile of gold by level 21 -- as in, he can afford to pay for his level 30 mount and training several times over, and still have enough left over to train himself all the way to 45 even if he doesn't make another penny.

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

In the World of Warcraft, just as in real life, your professional duties seem to extend beyond your job title. Perhaps most of your guild can cook, but are they all farming and contributing raid food? Which guildmate is the go-to-person for enchants, and who is donating materials instead of selling them on the Auction House for personal gain?

Don't get me wrong, here. Personal gain is a perfectly legitimate pursuit. We all have to support ourselves, and we all have expenses as well as things that we simply want. Still, there is a difference between someone who has maximized a skill and someone who really works it.

What is your niche? Are you the master of profits, a provider, or someone who brings the goods that no one else can? Today I'll be talking about how we practice our professions, and the roles and styles that we can adopt to enrich our in-game professional experiences.

I'm always amazed when people hit 80 and then start wondering how to make gold. Sure, there are all kinds of money tricks floating around (playing the AH is always fun, and everyone has their own tips they've picked up), but quite frankly, the easiest and most reliable way to pick up a ton of money at level 80 is just to do what you've been doing: go quest. Blizzard has made it so that there's no way you've hit all the quests in Northrend when you've reached the highest level, so odds are that you've got at least one (if not two or three) untouched zones of quests to do. And as folks have discovered on the forums, there's a ton of money to be made there.

Given that after level 80, experience turns into gold, the return on time invested with leftover questing is awesome. You can pick up over three thousand gold easily just by clearing out the zones you haven't hit hard, and by vendoring off the quest rewards that you get for completing the quests, you can pick up even more. Sure, some folks will have AH schemes that will bring in more money, but Blizzard has done their darndest to make sure there's money in them there questgivers, so if you're slouching around at 80 wondering what to do, go finish up your quests.

And of course if you really have finished up all of the quests in the game (and seen all the amazing storylines and character development that go along with doing so), then there's always daily quests to work on. While they won't pay out quite as much as one-time quests, when you break down the time you invest versus the gold you get out of it, they're often the best way to cash in your playtime as well.

I have a confession to make: I've been playing the AH pretty hard for a few weeks now (ever since I started grinding up to the 5000g for my epic, and yes I got it finally), and I've come up with a lot of good tips for you guys, but I've kept them to myself, because I was selfish and didn't want my sources of gold to dry up. But now, I've got pretty much all the gold I need, and I'm ready to bring these to the world. Lots of you will already know what I'm going to say here (some of you might even be angry that I'm telling everyone), but for those of you who haven't found these little holes in the AH, here you go.

First of all: level up your First Aid to 325 right now, because I've got three words for you: Heavy Netherweave Bandage. Think all that they'll do is heal you? Think again -- they vendor in the game for a whopping 6g per stack, so every time you log on your AH alt, the first thing you should do is run to the Auctioneer and buy up all the Netherweave cloth you can find for less than 3g -- crafted up into bandages, each stack of cloth is worth at least that, so anything you buy for less than 3g (I've seen it as low as 1g 50s -- people are throwing away money) is pure profit. This is the biggest moneymaker I've found (you don't make much per stack, but after you've "processed" a few hundred stacks, the money adds up), and it made me regret selling Netherweave for anything less than 3g before I figured this out.

Second big tip: don't ever buy anything on the weekends. Ever. Prices soar on the weekends, so much so that you'll often be able to take advantage of huge bargains during the week, and then turn around and craft or just resell those items on the weekends, when everyone else is playing. I know you really, really want that Primal Air on Sunday so you can finish off your profession leveling, but wait three days -- by Wednesday, all of the AH sellers will have seen their auctions expired and will be ready to lower the price.

Each week, Arcane Brilliance endeavors to distill the vast and complex world of Mages into a thousand words or so. How does Arcane Brilliance do it? Magic. Yep, it's an 81 point talent, learnable at level 100 and only available in the upcoming 5th expansion, tentatively titled, "World of Warcraft: The Burning Scarlet Crusade of the Lich King." This is leaked straight from the very early Alpha Beta Alpha Gamma of that expansion, and Arcane Brilliance is the sole invitee. In fact, It's so early that the game doesn't technically exist yet, which may explain why most of these columns end up being closer to three thousand words than one. Blizzard's working on a patch.

Level 40. You've burned and frozen your way through 39 levels of experience and two whole columns worth of leveling guides to get here, and now you're level 40. Have a party, invite your friends. It'll be fun. If it isn't, turn somebody into a sheep. Just trust me. Works every time. Well, unless your friends aren't humanoids, beasts, or critters, in which case I can't help you, and perhaps no-one can.

Level 40 is a milestone of such epic proportions that it's probably only rivaled by dinging 70 as far as stages in WoW progression go. When you're done celebrating, it's time to get going. You've got a lot to do. After the break, we'll talk about level 40 and all the wonderful new toys it makes available to you, and do our level best ( pun totally intended) to cover the 19 levels that follow, stopping only when we hit 60.

It's Friday, which means that it's payday for some of you. With that in mind, why don't we take a look at an addon that helps you stay on top of your virtual finances. For those of us who are not only information junkies, but also control freaks, this addon is a great way to maintain sovereignty over how your gold comes and goes.

AuditorFu, contrary to what the name implies, will function with or without the Fubar addon. However, I find it best suited as a center-aligned, top-bar, Fubar mod, as it allows me to see the important stuff at center stage. (Alongside AuldLangSyne) There's nothing worse than having an inflated view of your gold total and quickly realizing the mats for your Red Belt of Battle are out of reach.

The good news is that this addon can help you be more diligent if you're saving for a crafted epic or your Artisan Riding skill. Every copper counts, my friends.

Eyonix made a lot of players happy the other day by announcing the start of Season 4. It's something that a lot of players have been waiting for, even planning for. Some players will be making the mad rush to accumulate Arena and Honor points. Within the first week of the new season, players who have stashed away the maximum 5,000 Arena points will be able to purchase anywhere from two to three pieces of Brutal Gladiator gear, provided they achieve the required personal ratings.

For other players such as those who have only recently dinged 70 or those new to the PvP scene, the 75,000 maximum Honor -- or whatever Honor they have stashed away -- will likely be used to purchase Merciless Gladiator gear when it goes on sale. More seasoned players will use the Honor to purchase Guardian gear to round out their equipment slots. When Season 4 starts, players will be strutting around Azeroth in brand spanking new gear. For a select few, these players will look like walking piles of Gold. New Arena seasons flood the community with enchant-worthy, gem-hungry gear like no other event.