Hall of Fame – 1 Million Gold Cap Club: Nosuchdevice of Destromath-US

The Warcraft Econ Hall of Fame interviews the few elite players that have hit the World of Warcraft gold cap of 999,999 gold 99 silver 99 copper as well as ones who have obtain 500k and 250k. We have with us, Nosuchdevice of Destromath-US, who will be sharing their story with us today.

Please tell us a little about yourself and your gaming experience.

I play a feral druid on Daggerspine, though I just transferred there.  Most know me as Segsfault from  Horde side on Mal’ganis or Destromath,  The latter server is where my gold, crafting alts, and AH toons are.   I’ve been playing MMOs since Ultima Online, and had fun setting up mandrake root and black pearl vendors.

Do you raid or PvP most? Both? How do you enjoy the game?

I go back and forth between PvE and PvP.  Right now I find the content recycled and stale, so may PvP more depending how Firelands turns out.  Generally I enjoy the achievement point system, and I waste a lot of time on that.

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

Shortly after getting the ‘Insane’ title (when you still needed Shen’dralar rep), guildies told me that it was probably easier to get the gold cap than grind that achievement out.  That stuck with me for a while, and I decided to test the theory.

How did you go about getting to this gold amount?

I got my start during ‘Glyphmas’, when Blizzard made it so that glyphs could be permanently learned.  Even though addons were broken during the initial rush, I managed to clear about 150k in a week using glyphs I had stockpiled just for the patch.  Initially I thought the demand would die down, but in fact it has remained steady throughout Cata, so I stuck with it.

In addition to glyphs I also used my JC/enchanter to do the ore shuffle, my leatherworker and tailor to make PvP gear and armor enhancements.  Undermine Journal with rare patterns set on watch coupled with the mobile armory also helped a lot.  The funnest thing I’d do is collect Perfect/Imperfect Draenethyst Fragments from the rare spawns in Blasted Lands and disenchant the greens/sell the blues.  This actually netted a lot of gold, since Greater Eternal Essences are in constant demand.  The whole circuit takes just a few minutes, and they respawn a few times a day.

However I’d say 75% of my income was via glyphs.  I eventually gave up on most other markets because they actually require attention, while the glyph market is mindless.  On Destromath, the entire trick with glyphs is to cancel/repost your undercut auctions as often as possible.  With add-ons, this is trivial, yet very tedious. The procedure in a nutshell is

click the ‘cancel’ icon in TSM.  This takes a few minutes to compile a list of things that are undercut

Cancel the auctions.  With a scroll-wheel macro, this takes 10 seconds of human work, and then the servers need a few minutes to process the cancellations and dump them to your mailbox

Collect the glyphs from the mail.  This is by far the most time consuming, since you can only collect roughly 1 glyph per second.  It’s not uncommon for this to take 10 minutes.  But again it is the servers that need the time.  The amount of time you need is only a minute or so.

Click the ‘post’ icon in TSM.  Like cancelling, this takes a few minutes to compile a list of things to put up on the AH.

Post the auctions using the scroll-wheel macro.

The whole process can take up to 20 minutes if you run with a lot of glyphs like I did, but it only requires a minute or two of actual interaction.

During the early part of my adventure to reach the gold cap, I had just bought a house, and had a two month holiday where I spent a lot of time fixing it up.  During that time, it was easy to be online constantly and babysit TSM during the cancel/repost cycle. The only ‘hard’ part was crafting the glyphs, which I did once every few days.

Eventually my holiday was over, and I could no longer blindly cancel/repost with enough frequency to stay competitive.  I’m able to log in from work for a few minutes during breaks, but managing 1000+ glyphs takes more time than that.  So for my last 250k to the cap I came up with an entirely new approach.

Each morning and evening I’d log in, scan the AH for glyphs that sell for 200g or more, and craft just ONE if I didn’t have it for sale already.  I’d then post it on a 12h auction with an initial bid set at 60% of the buyout price.  This has three main advantages:

you end up only having to deal with ~100 glyphs total, making it very fast to cancel/repost.  I could do that on breaks at work and still have time to spare.

Even if you can’t log in, the short nature of the auction and the appealing bid price nets me a lot of sales from more patient buyers.

The competition generally doesn’t see this as threat and therefore is less likely to tank the market in an effort to drive out others (this happened a few times while in my 1000+ glyph phase).

This approach proved so successful that I wish I did it sooner.  You make less gold, but it takes no time at all to deal with the auctions that your gold/hour shoots way up.  Using this approach I was clearing roughly 2-3k per day.  Most of my competition runs with 3-5 of each of these more profitable glyphs, and it must have drove them insane to go through a 20 minute cancel/repost cycle each time I undercut them. I know I hated it. The increased efficiency meant I had time to play with other markets more, in particular cutting rare gems.  Near the end I was making as much per day compared to the time I could babysit the glyph market, but in a fraction of the time.

What is your master list?

The glyph market is funny and volatile.  In general DK, Paladin, and Hunter glyphs sold best for me.

What items are in your Snatch list?

I kept an eye on cheap cinderbloom and stormvine.  I rarely bothered with lesser herbs, preferring instead to mill Cata herbs and trade inks for the lesser ones.  I paid roughly 4g/ink, and sold the inferno.

How did you learn to do it? Anyone or resource you would like to thank?

Undermine Journal was the main portal.  It posts highlights from a variety of gold making blogs, making it easy keep a pulse on the WoW economy.

What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold and why are they needed?

TSM for posting, cancelling, and crafting.  Auctionator for getting a good master overview of the glyph market (useful also for buying out low cost glyphs and resetting the market).  MySales helped a bit as well by letting me know which glyphs sold more frequently (so I could stock more of them).

Are you still going for more gold?

Having reached a million gold, I’m done.  Even with just 100 glyphs to manage, I still hate the market.  Plus, the whole point was to see whether it was harder than ‘insane in the membrane’.  In my opinion, I’d rather redo that achievement than reach the gold cap

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

Just my buddies who provided the initial motivation by comparing it to the Insane title.

Did you spend your gold on fun things?

I used the profits to get a few more pets so I could reach the achievement, and will probably pick up a Vial of the Sands at some point.

If you were the professor of a gold making 101 college class, what would be some things you would talk about?

My main advice is there are many ways to make a lot of gold in WoW, but fewer ways to make money efficiently. Stick with what you know best, though spend some time experimenting in order to find ways to increase your gold/hour.

How about an advanced gold making class?

Really study your mods and the system you use to make gold. For instance in my case, when I switched to 100 glyphs from 1000, I freed up 90% of the time I normally spent on glyphs.  I could use that time to play with other markets and ultimately make more money.

Do you have good farming strategies or spots?

Blasted lands for the rare spawns nets a quick profit.

What was the best deal you ever came across?

I picked up the recipe for Dirge’s Kickin’ Chimaerok Chops for just 15k

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

I bought 200k worth of pyrium ore, and my guess is I’ll break even on it at the end of the day.

What are your future plans with WoW?

I’ll play it till they pull the plug, though I spend less and less time with it as time goes on.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

At some point I predict they will overhaul the gear crafting professions.  The list of items has become bloated over all these expansions, and most folk will use heirloom gear anyways.

Please tell us a little bit about how you handle your real life finances. What are the differences and similarities with how you do things in WoW?

The key for me is patience.  Both in game and out I never buy something the second it comes out, and I research as much as possible before investing in something.  Also, I find it is healthy to set aside some ‘fun money’ to burn every once in a while.