WoW

Learning TradeSkillMaster

I’ve been trying to make more gold in WoW for some time, unsuccessfully. I don’t have a lot of time to play, so farming is something that I have to make quick work of, with a lot of direction in order to turn a profit. My class hall rewards some coin, but only a few thousand or so a day, IF the money reward missions are up. It’s not always guaranteed.

There’s a popular addon called TradeSkillMaster that optimizes how you go about earning coin in World of Warcraft, but this addon is not for the faint of heart. It’s complicated, there are a ton of settings, and you can’t just jump right into it (as I discovered). That being said, if you’re willing to dedicate a little bit of time to watching some YouTube videos and hanging out in their discord channel, you can learn a LOT.

That’s how I went from having about 60k to my name, to making 400k this week, and buying two WoW tokens. I’m trying to either buy Overwatch, or pre-order Battle For Azeroth using just WoW tokens. I LOVE that we can convert tokens into a type of blizzard currency. I can either get 30 days of game time, or $19 CAD. I probably need at least one more token before I can afford the basic version of BfA, and I certainly need one to get OW unless it goes on sale again (kicking myself for not picking it up over Christmas) but I’m confident that I can earn the coin without too much issue.

What have I been doing? Well, I watched some videos on YouTube first, and set up groups in TSM to do specific operations like undercut based on a %, or price at a % depending on what the market value is. The blizzard api has been down since 7.3.5 so prices are skewed right now and are not working optimally, but it’s still teaching me and it’s not too bad.

Once I had my groups optimized to do the pricing I wanted, I started watching the market. I bought a few items for a couple of hundred gold that I flipped for a few thousand. Fists of Thane Kray-Tan I found for 350g, and sold for 14250g which is still well below market, so it was a quick sale. A few recipes were going for well beneath their value, so I picked those up. Flipping is a slow way to make gold, it’s hit or miss depending on the market, and you’re subject to the whims of players. You need patience but it can pay off.

I also started selling BattlePets. Now these are different than selling most items because you can sell and buy them account wide, on any server. High population servers tend to have cheaper pets (more competition). The hardcore ‘goblins’ as the gold earners are called in discord, buy and sell on multiple servers, depending on which ones are high / low in price. Me, I’m not quite that dedicated yet. I do play on a handful of different servers, and different factions, but for now I’ve just been trying to focus on learning what I can about the main server I play on.

Alts also help you make gold, but I don’t have any that I’m actively playing right now. There’s even a discord channel for the farmers, multiboxers, and all the rest. There are so many different ways to make gold in game depending on how much time and resources you have available to you.

Honestly, I find it absolutely fascinating and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. I don’t know whether it was just luck that got me the two tokens or if I can keep up earning that sort of gold, but I feel like I’m learning about how the market works, how volatile it can be, and improving my money making capabilities. You need to take the time to learn your market, what sells, what doesn’t, what are quick sales, what requires a little more patience. With new races coming up it means people will soon be dusting off those newly created alts and leveling up, meaning some things may have more of a market than others. You need to pay attention – and I love it.

I’m enjoying my time in WoW. I don’t care what anyone says about the game, how easy it is or how I should be playing XYZ instead. It’s relaxing, fun, and just really comfortable. Plus my husband should be joining me in game VERY soon, and I am just absolutely tickled about that.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Rematch (PetBattles)

I haven’t done a lot of pet collecting in Legion, I haven’t been through the zones to see what I’m missing, and I haven’t seen where I get the pets I’m lacking. Lately the mod I’ve been using the most, is Rematch. It lets me make teams which a few other mods let me do, but in this case I’m able to create it based on the NPC that I’m targeting. As you can see by the far right hand side I’ve got 4 Legion NPCs listed there, the ‘eternal strider’ one is just a leveling team that I threw together. Some of the battles are more difficult than others and I still need to look up the method that I defeated them the last time, but in most cases it’s pretty straight forward. Attack until the NPC pets are dead.

I’d like to get back to collecting. I’m missing almost everything you can catch in the wild in Legion, plus whatever specialty pets there are. There are only a handful on the AH that I don’t own, and I haven’t done the new pet battle dungeon yet, either.

It’s a great way for alts to level up and a relaxing way for me to spend a little time.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Making Money in WoW

I read a blog post yesterday from @sypster about how he was making money in WoW without having to play all day long and without exerting too much effort. I believe his end goal is paying for his subscription with tokens, but it got me thinking a bit. I don’t have a lot of game time and what I do have is often played with a toddler on my lap, but I wanted to optimize my own gains a bit more.

One thing mentioned right off the bat was the class hall champions. For a while I was completely drained of resources so I wasn’t even using them. Their ilevel is hovering around 850 and most are not geared or leveled. That needs to change. My alts don’t even have more than 2 champions, something else I want to work on.

I also use TSM (TradeSkillMaster) but I don’t know how to use all of the features it provides. There are some YouTube videos and tutorials I want to take a look at, it’s just a matter of finding the time.

Then there’s world quests. I’ve been neglecting to do a lot of them because I figured that the gear was not an upgrade and who wants to do a quest for 80 gold – but that gold adds up, and those purple gear rewards can be disenchanted and sold for 250 gold each (give or take a few gold). So there’s certainly methods out there I could be taking advantage of in order to get myself a larger nest egg.

What do I hope to do with mine? Well, I’d really like to buy Overwatch. I meant to pick it up when it went on sale, but completely forgot (it was Christmas after all). I’m content paying my $18.99 CAD a month for my subscription, but there are shop items I’d love to get, and little extras that tokens could make up for. It would be great to buy a few mounts or pets that I’m missing, too.

Have any other gold making tips? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Thoughts on Crafting

I know, it’s late into the expansion to be talking about crafting, but it has been weighing on my mind, so here we are.

My favourite type of crafting is when it’s able to be completed independently from adventuring, or at least doesn’t rely too heavily on it. EQ2 did a fantastic job with this, allowing crafters access to higher level areas and abilities due to their crafting level, even if their adventure level was quite far behind.

I like complex crafting (think of Vanguard) and I like the ability to do something else besides beating in the heads of my enemies. Crafting fills that niche – in some games. This isn’t the case with World of Warcraft, and I feel like the past two expansions have been ‘dumbed down’ even further for those of us who enjoy crafting but who may want a break from adventuring.

First, there’s the fact that you no longer have to do any old world content to level up. You can get from 1-800 using just Legion recipes. They’ve obliterated their own content, allowing players to purposely skip it because after all who wants to do old content and farm in old places when there’s a shiny new place out there.

This was also the case in Warlords, and I disliked it back then too. I was sad to see it moving forward.

Legion also added gated content to crafting, something that I absolutely loath. You have to do adventure dungeons (on their easiest setting, but it’s still a dungeon) in order to unlock some recipes, to progress some crafts, and move forward. You are forced to group up, either with friends or using the dungeon finder tool to complete crafting quests.

I’m sure there are lots of people out there who have no issues with this, but me, I have an issue with it. I don’t mind doing crafting quests to grind reputation, or doing adventure quests to unlock things I need for crafting – but please, don’t force me into a dungeon situation when I may not be comfortable with that.

They also recommend you be 110 for the crafting quests, so that means you have to level your adventure stuff up first. I made the mistake of progressing my crafting first and I was unable to do what I needed to do because I wasn’t high enough level. It left me feeling frustrated and defeated.

Not everyone enjoys virtual killing all day long every day. Having options for people like – crafting – is a great way to keep retention on people who may not typically play your sort of game. The crafting community in MMOs is a strong one, and I dislike to see them being overlooked in a lot of games. We don’t all play the same way, and forcing us to is just a bit ignorant (and lazy).

I’m 778 in tailoring, and questing along trying to find the breadcrumbs that I’ve missed over time so that I can unlock more recipes. I still have enchanting to do and since this is a newer character I’m starting over at square one, which isn’t much fun, but I do want to get my crafting up there. Next? Maybe fishing.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Barely Gaming, But Still Gaming

With our big move just looming around the corner, almost moving onto the second trimester of my pregnancy, and watching a toddler who spends more time running around than sitting still, as you can imagine I don’t have a whole lot of extra time on my hands to do any sort of gaming, and when I do find myself with a free moment here and there, I tend to close my eyes and instantly pass out. I have been incredibly tired, plus me and my little guy are just getting over the last of a very annoying cold.

Even though I have barely any time, I do still manage to log into WoW almost every day, even just briefly. I’ve been playing the market, and working on my crafting. Sometimes I manage a little bit of fishing. Now that I have flying in Legion I don’t feel too pressured to do a great deal – though I know I have a ways to go if I want to unlock the new races that are being released. By then maybe my husband will be playing, and I am incredibly excited about that.

I’ve been trying to sell some trading card game pets for a few weeks now with no luck. I know it’s highly unlikely that someone wants to plop down 50-150k on a pet but I keep trying anyway in the hopes that one of those rare collectors will swoop down on it.

I’ve also been selling my tailored goods as I level up that skill. I picked up a bunch of quests I need to do that I wasn’t even aware were available. Sometimes tucking quests away in Suramar is a bad thing Blizzard!

I’ve also been participating in a beta that I can’t talk about for a little while yet, but it has been fun and I’m looking forward to sharing that with readers a little later this month.

It has been a really hectic time, but I’m glad for things. I might be tired, but life is pretty full. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Nomadic Gamer