The WoW Gold Mine

I regularly make 1000 gold per hour now in World of Warcraft.  That’s a conservative number (I’ll show you why.). You can find the details about the addons here on the site, but here’s exactly what I do: I have installed Routes addon from Curse.com. I have installed Gatherer and Gathermate and Cartographer Mining and Herbalism addons. (UPDATE: use Gathermate_data addon as well to add the spawnpoints to your mods) I am level 80 and have an epic flyer.  (You can do it with a non-epic flyer, but might be a tad slower, obviously.) I have Mining and Herbalism maxed out. I go to Icecrown and use the Routes addon to create a route in Icecrown.  I add all the herbalism and mining waypoints from all of the addons that it can use (Gatherer, Gathermate, Cartographer). I ‘cluster’ the waypoints with the default setting of 60 yards.  That creates fewer waypoints for the route.  It will fly close enough to a mineral or herb spawn point without making me travel exactly from point to point. I use the Extra Optimization option from the Routes addon.  This makes the route as short as possible. I then simply fly around the route.  I’ll skip nodes that are in really dangerous spots, like the one next to the Elites or the cluster of evil paladins…it’s too much work to kill them just for some ore. Note:  I have both Herbalism and Mining.  So I use a simple ‘castsequence’ macro that’s bound to my Z key that toggles Find Minerals and Find Herbs back and forth. Note 2: I have a route that includes both herbs and ore which is long, and I can toggle back and forth.  I also have a route that is only for ore, and I stick with mining only for that one.  BOTH have produced 1000g per hour. To calculate how much I’m making, I use the Auctioneer addon, with all the details in the tooltips added.  I use Appraiser when I’m at the auction house (that’s a tab available when you have Auctioneer installed).  I have customized my minimum settings so that I will almost always undercut the competition.  I don’t care.  I’m all about volume.  I’m not trying to squeeze every last copper out of each transaction.  That’s too much like work.  I’m in, I post my auctions, I’m out.  Movin’ on.  Yah…I’m sure some folks hate me for undercutting them all the time.  They’ll deal.  The market goes up and down, and somebody is happy because they were able to buy cheap goods.  I’m the WalMart of the Auction House…small business hate me, but the customers love me.  (And if crafters were smart they would contact me and work a deal where I provide for them.) Anyway, when I’m at the Auction House, I open Appraiser, and just hit ‘Refresh’ on each item I’m about to post so it scans just that item.   No more long Auction House full-scans.  Just one item name at a time.  I use the Histograph as the calculation for the price, and the ‘Beat Competition’ box (or whatever it’s called) checked.  That makes me, almost always, the lowest priced items out there. EVEN WITH UNDERCUTTING EVERYONE I AM MAKING 1000G PER HOUR. It seems that, regardless of whether I’m just getting Ore, or both Herbs and Ore, the value of what I pull is pretty consistent.  I’ve noticed that no matter how many times I repeat the circuit, no matter what time of day, etc., I am getting a consistent average of Titanium ore, blue uncut gems, Frost Lotus, Crystallized Life and Fire, etc. The exact way I calculate it is to empty my bags, go to Icecrown and trigger a self-buff that lasts 30 minutes.  Then I fly the route until the buff expires.  Then I mouse over each stack or item that I’ve gathered and look at the Undercut price in the tooltip, and add it up.  It’s always been a little over 500g after 30 minutes.  And it’s repeatable…I’ve done so many times to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. If I wanted to make it even faster, I’d take advantage of the ‘Taboo’ feature of Routes, which blocks off certain areas.  This would be nice to avoid those sections where the Elites make it too tough to get to the nodes.  But I’m too lazy and am making too much gold just flying around as it is. I usually just log on and chat with guildies while flying around waiting for an opening in a dungeon run or battleground.  There’s not much left for me to buy in the game, so I don’t farm ‘hard’…mostly I just do it for fun to see how much I can make, and to be able to splurge if I want to power-level a different profession on one of my other toons. I hope this helps! UPDATE:  I thought that after a few weeks the prices on everything would steadily decline, and that it wouldn’t truly be 1000 gph any more.  Well, I just finished a test run in Icecrown again, to compare to Sholazar Basin Mining .  I did exactly a 30-minute route around Icecrown, starting with empty bags, and went straight to the AH afterwards.  I refreshed all of my AH data so that I would be undercutting everyone…and posted 638 GOLD worth of auctions !!!  That is over 1200 gold per hour!  So this process still works.  (By the way, my mining route around Sholazar only netted me about 415 gold in 30 minutes, or just over 800 gold per hour.  I’m sticking with Icecrown, tyvm!)

Go here to see the original:
1000 Gold Per Hour. That’s Fast Gold!

NOTE:  Updated for 3.0 and beyond! How would you like an addon that: 1. Put EVERY known spawn point of every type of ore/herb on your map? (not just ones you’ve gathered) 2. Put a tiny ore/herb indicator on your minimap which showed what type of ore/herb it is? 3. Had the minimap indicator turn into an empty circle when you’re close enough to see if there’s a spawn there or not? AND 4. Drew a route on your map and minimap that most efficiently took you to visit every spawn point? Welcome to Routes! Move over ‘Gatherer Addon’….there’s a new mod which will do more than replace Gatherer. It reduces the time it takes to find ore/herbs. Here’s what to do: 1. Go to curse.com and get the ‘Curse Client’ 2. Once you’ve installed it, you can choose which addons you want. Choose and install: * GatherMate * GatherMate_Data * Routes – NOTE:  NOT ‘Cartographer Routes’…that is old.  There’s a new one called just ‘Routes’. 3. Once in the game, with the addons installed (you’ll have to load out-of-date addons for the Herbalism and Mining to show up), type /routes. 4. You can add a new Route for each zone.  Basically, stick with the default settings, checking on all of the spawn points (herbs and ore) you want plotted.  This will create a really ugly non-functional route. 5. Once the route is created, find it in your list of routes on the left, and modify it. 6. Under the Optimize tab, you’ll see an option to CLUSTER.  Absolutely do that.  Basically what that does is combines spawnpoints into one ‘point’ if they are within 60 yards (by default).  That creates many fewer points to route out, and 80 yards is the distance for detecting the presence of an herb or ore. 7. Then click either Foreground (my preference) or Background and it will create a single route. 8. If you have the route enabled it creates a white line path around the map.  If you fly that route, it will take you the shortest route possible within detection range of each spawn point you chose to display.  On your minimap, spawnpoints out of range will display with a small icon representing the type of spawn it is (adamantite ore, felweed, etc.).  Once within range, that mini icon will turn into an empty red or green circle (red for ore, green for herbs).  If the circle is empty, there’s no spawn…else it will have the normal yellow dot in it. TA-DA! You should have the most efficient (shortest) route that will circuit the map and hit every spawn point along the way! Now you can just fly along this route (you don’t have to stick exactly to it), and you will fly over every point on a given zone. The other thing you can do is create shorter routes based on fewer spawn points. Don’t choose EVERY type of data, but instead choose just one, such as Titanium. Let the route be built on Titanium only. Maybe you’re only interested in Titanium because it sells better on your server than other ore. You can shorten your route a bit…and you can still see other ore if you happen to fly over it. You just won’t go out of your way to check a single spawn point. Here’s a video I made of me setting it up. I’ve gotten as much as 600g in 30 minutes using this route, and I consistenly get 500g in 30 minutes. If you need help getting your Herbalism or Mining professions maxed out quickly, the best speed-leveling guide for professions I’ve found is Penn’s .

See original here:
Route to find Herbs/Ore

This is an oldie but a goodie. Is it just me, or have Netherweave cloth prices taken a dip lately? The funny thing is that lately the price of Netherweave Cloth on the AH has been lower than the sale price of Heavy Netherweave Bandages.  A 20-stack of bandages sells to a vendor for 6g.  It takes 2 20-stacks of Netherweave Cloth to make the bandages.  Ergo, if you see Netherweave Cloth for sale under 3g per stack, snatch it up, and push ‘Make All’, and walk away. If you can pick up the cloth for 2g 50s per 20-stack, you’re making 1g per full stack of bandages.  This isn’t huge amounts of gold, but hey…I don’t step over a dollar laying on the sidewalk if I see one!

Read the original post: 
Make Gold with Netherweave Bandages

Funcom, WarCry and IGN are proud to offer you a chance to win 1 of 100 Beta Keys to the upcoming MMO Age of Conan. Based on the works of Robert E. Howard, this game offers players the chance to explore the mature and gritty world of Hyboria. Contest winners will be notified via email on Monday April 28th with instructions on how to get a hold of their copy of the game. For more information on AoC, check out Age of Conan WarCry and check back regularly for updates on the beta and upcoming launch of Age of Conan.

Read the rest here:
Age of Conan: Win 1 of 100 Beta Keys!

It’s tonight! Flying Lab Software live on our IRC servers to talk about Pirates of the Burning Sea. For four lucky fans, some time cards await in a random draw, and one will get a t-shirt. So stop in at 8:00pm EST to talk to the developers. Here are the details: When : 04/09/2008 8pm Eastern / 5pm Pacific (Wednesday) Where : irc.chatspike.net 6667 in #WarCouncil General chat will be available in #warcry Who : The following Flying Lab developers will be on hand. Russell Williams (FLS CEO) Kevin Maginn (Lead Game Designer) Joe Ludwig (Producer) David Hunt (Game Designer) Drew Clowery (Game Designer) Troy Hewitt (Director of Community Relations) Tom Atkinson-Edwards (Community Specialist) Need a way in? No problem just use our Java Client , Chatspike’s IRC Client or an mIRC Client . We look forward to seeing you there!

Original post:
Pirates of the Burning Sea Dev Chat: Tonight at 8pm Eastern!

In on week’s time, we’ll have ourselves another developer chat with Pirates of the Burning Sea. This is your chance to talk to the people behind the biggest MMO launch of 2008. The chat is on Wednesday April 9th at 8:00pm Eastern (5:00pm Pacific)! Your details: When : 04/09/2008 8pm Eastern / 5pm Pacific (Wednesday) Where : irc.chatspike.net 6667 in #WarCouncil General chat will be available in #warcry Who : The following Flying Lab developers will be on hand. Russell Williams (FLS CEO) Kevin Maginn (Lead Game Designer) Joe Ludwig (Producer) David Hunt (Game Designer) Drew Clowery (Game Designer) Troy Hewitt (Director of Community Relations) Tom Atkinson-Edwards (Community Specialist) Need a way in? No problem just use our Java Client , Chatspike’s IRC Client or an mIRC Client . We look forward to seeing you there!

View original post here:
Pirates of the Burning Sea: Dev Chat In One Week

In the second half of his two part article called “To Be A Hero” ( Part One is here ), Jonathan Steinhauer gives us more of his personal take on how MMORPGs and how players want to be the center of that universe. Every other Monday, Steinhauer brings us his design related MMO thoughts in this column. Another method of achievement is through the use of competitions. Asheron’s Call had a story writing contest that generated over a thousand submissions and the top nine were placed in game as actual books you could purchase from vendors. Other contests games have introduced have been as varied as screenshots and cloak designs. But recognition isn’t the sole property of game designers. Many guilds host contests, the most popular being PvP matches. Back when I played AC, my guild setup its own rank structure which awarded members for participation with the prize being different colored robes. Admittedly, player-based fame has the tendency to be more localized, but it does give the opportunity for increased prominence among the fellow gamers that you know the best. Read more after the leap.

Original post:
Steinhauer’s Opinion: To Be A Hero, Part 2

This Monday, Jonathan Steinhauer begins a look at a new issue in his bi-weekly column. In “To Be A Hero” asks the fundamental question that we all face when it comes to our time, our darkness and MMOs: why do we play? Why do we play MMOs (or adventure style games of any sort)? Fundamentally, one would hope, because they are fun. Aside from that, there are a myriad of reasons, but a major one is that it gives us a chance to be heroic in a way we really can’t in real life (and if we could, probably wouldn’t want to given the massive death rate our avatars suffer). Games give us the chance to be “the hero.” Yet how can we truly be the hero in a world where 100% of the world’s population are hero-aspirants and each step down the road to renown is identical for everyone? Read more after the jump.

See more here:
Steinhauer’s Opinion: To Be A Hero, Part 1

In the second part of a two part look at The Close Combat Archer ( click here for part one ), columnist Jonathan Steinhauer looks at the design of this tricky class in MMOs. In the medieval era, a man who was struck by an arrow in the chest was either dead or severely injured, whereas in gaming, a man who is hit by ten arrows might very well shrug them off and win the day. What does all this mean for archers? Simply this. The potency of archery is to inflict damage at range before the target can get into melee. But when health is super-inflated to offer the survivability necessary in MMOs it also makes the task of an archer killing its opponent at range almost impossible. Read more after the jump.

Read the original post:
Steinhauer’s Opinion: The Close Combat Archer, Part 2

In this edition of “Community Column”, Sean Bulger follows on his previous look at pre-made factions with player-made factions and how they relate to community in MMOs. EVE had its empires: the Amarr, the Gallente, the Caldari, and the Mimnatar (woo!). However, in all reality, these empires were largely background for the game, racial options, and a way to divide up ships for players. The Empires weren’t really factions in the sense that the realms of Dark Age were – well, at least not at the time of writing. Instead, EVE focused on the player-created corporations. Now, if you are a new player to EVE, you may not really realize just how much of an effect on the game that these player corporations have. In fact, many smaller corporations have rather small effects. However, out in lawless space, it is player factions that fight over the control of huge sections of the galaxy and resources in a quest to control space, crush foes, and become rich. Read more after the jump.

Read the original: 
Community Column: Player-Made Factions