Hall of Fame – 1 Million Gold Cap Club: Ghoull of Black Dragonflight-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, Ghoull of Black Dragonflight-US, who will be sharing their story with us today.

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

I was a console gamer growing up. Legend of Zelda is still my favorite franchise to date. I first got involved with online gaming back with Diablo 2:LOD. Then picked up Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, and Battlefronts 1 & 2. Then almost 2 years ago I finally broke down and started playing World of Warcraft.

My main is Ghoull on Black Dragonflight (formerly Ghoullash of Detheroc).  I have 2 other max level alts Ellduce and Selmak. Have been playing World of Warcraft for almost 2 years and have been what I would call a serious gold maker for little less then a year.

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

Up until reaching a million gold I have just raided (6/13 heroic teir 11, 11/12 10 & 25 heroic ICC), with limited pvp. Now that I am gold capped I plan got focusing that time into pvp and seeing where I can go with that.

To me though, playing the AH and making gold is just as much fun as downing e-dragons and e-monsters. There is nothing quite like pulling 100k+ out of your mailbox multiple times.

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

I chose to hit gold cap mostly because it would be fun to put up 999,999g99s99c in trade window of beggars and go AFK. In all seriousness it was a challenge and I have a lot of fun playing the AH and collecting 100k out of my mailbox at a time. I will be writing regular articles for Warcraftecon.net, so this helps to establish some more credibility to my writings.

How did you go about getting to this gold amount? Any creative or original ideas?

I wont get to in-depth here as I will be writing articles on a regular basis for this site.

For this cap I did use a wide range of professions. Inscription for glyphs and Darkmoon cards/trinkets, Leatherworking for BOE epics, Jewelcrafting, Alchemy and Enchanting together for a very complex version of the obsidium and elementium shuffle.

Still my favorite thing and biggest money makers by far are big ticket items. Vial of the sands, Darkmoon trinkets, Leatherworking BOE epics, etc. I will say that very few people, (only 1 person I personally know) likes this type of market. The downside is you might have the same item crafted for 1-2 weeks, then the next day sell 3 or 4. The upside is the payoff is huge. With the exception of Darkmoon card: Earthquake the payoff is anywhere from 2k for the LW boe’s up to 10k+ for Darkmoon card: Tsunami.

What is your master list?

Every glyph I have learned, All Darkmoon 359ilevel trinkets, relics (when profitable) dust of disappearance, mysterious fortune cards, the 4 LW BOE belts, the 4 LW BOE chests, nethercleft leg armor, occasionally Cataclysm level leg armors, 22 different cut gems including the 3 BOE world drop meta cuts (highest profit gems for me by far), The blue proc cata random enchant necks and gems, raw gems for JC dailies Almost every Cataclysm level enchant, enchanted lantern, personal world destroyer. Embersilk and netherweave bags. Raw enchant mats from BC, WotLK, and Cataclysm.

What items are in your Snatch list?

Elementium ore and bars, Obsidium ore and bars, and Pyrite ore. Any herb that can be milled to make glyphs, savage leather, pristine hides, all volatiles, blackened dragonscales, truegold, pyrium  bar, maelstrom crystals, heavenly shards. Also several popular BOE raid drop 359 epic armors/weapons.  353 ZA/ZG BOE’s for disenchanting, netherweave cloth/bolts, embersilk cloth/bolts

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

I would say 90% of what I do is self taught. I used to be a reader of JMTC and I am sure I picked up a couple things along the way. The real person I have to thank is the admin of this site. He is a good friend of mine in game, and was the one who put the bug in me about serious gold making.

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

Tradeskill Master- If you post/cancel massive amounts of auctions like myself (300-600 at a time) this will save you massive  amounts of time. In about 5 minutes I can cancel and re-post several hundred auctions. You set the rules for how it posts for you. For instance, glyphs for me to make enough to have it worth while I want to sell at a minimum of 20g, I post 3 of each at a time, undercut by 1 copper and if none of that glyph are posted it posts it for 150g.  It also is great for keeping track of inventory of crafted items such as glyphs so you can easily tell what you need to make more of. In a similar manner to the way it posts auctions you can craft more of what you have sold in a very quick manner.

Auctioneer- Snatch list is another huge time saver. You set your price that you are willing to buy your materials or items at, hit the refresh button (assuming you have done 1 full scan) and it will put in a window everything that meets your prices you want to pay for said items. I also prefer the interface of the AH that auctioneer has well over the standard interface.

Postal- Having a .1 second open speed when you are canceling 300+ auctions at a time saves a lot of time.

Altoholic- Keeps track of all things in your bags, banks and guild banks. It also keeps track of your gold and where it is.

Mr. Plow- Not that important, but since I have some OCD tendencies  in me, 1 click rearrange your bags or banks makes organizing things a breeze.

Are you still going for more gold?  If so, do you have a new goal? Are you close?

I will casually make gold for the time being. Sticking mostly to the world of BOE epic armors, trinkets etc. as they take very little work. I plan on helping out my guild build and maintain the guild bank to help provide more consumables, enchants, gems for free or reduce cost.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

Quite a few guildies, a few of my farmers do as well. I do not feel the need to hide it, as I love talking about making gold sharing my ideas and picking up on what others do as well.

Did you spend your gold on fun things? What have you bought? What things would you like to buy?

I have every mount you can buy in game, as well as a spectral tiger and mottled drake (from the TCG card game) I purchased with wow gold. I also hope to be inline for the legendary in 4.2, and will have no problem paying obscene amounts for living embers if I am. The gold also allows me to purchase any BOE gear when a new patch comes out to help that much more with early progression. I am also working the the “insane in the membrane” achievement, so I plan on spending a decent amount there.

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

Do not farm, farming is not free mats. Easiest way for me to put it is why do something that only pays you maybe 1-2k gold per hour. when playing the AH can easily double that, or in some cases as high as 10k per hour depending on the week of the month. If you have a farming profession that you use to farm in your off/down time when your out of other mats and can not find mats in trade or the AH, I will not fault you for that. There still are better things to do though.

Also one of the best money makers is not even a profession in game per say. Reading patch notes is a huge deal. Almost every major content match there are changes in the economy. Perhaps by the addition of epic gems, or making it so you can trade 10 heavy leather for 1 arctic fur, or like when they added dual talent specialization and you needed a 2nd set of glyphs. These and other similar patch notes are a major piece of intelligence  that can greatly effect the way you make after a patch comes out. In the future you can count on myself and the rest of the people at Warcraft Econ to help provide you with that information.

How about an advanced gold making class?

Time management. We only have so many hours in the day and so much time on this Earth so optimizing your time is essential. There are a lot of different ways to do this. Addons, snatch lists,  not farming. developing a network of farmers, not farming, various macros for different professions to speed up prospecting, milling etc, oh and have I mentioned that farming is a bad use of your time?

Do you have good farming strategies or spots?

I would rather here someone talk about my momma, then call me a farmer. Unless you count me hitting my snatch list in auctioneer. If you have downtime with nothing to craft go for it. Farming is NOT free materials. My time is infinitely more valuable.

What was the best deal you ever came across?

Only one that sticks out lately is I bought a bracers of dark pool for 5k and flipped it for 15k the next day. I am constantly on the look out for BOE epics for cheap prices to flip. An important thing to remember before attempting that is really know the market before you do it. Just because you see something selling for 18k, and another undercut to 10k. It does not always mean you can buy the one for 10k undercut the 18k by a copper and expect it to sell.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

I have never had any really bad deals where I lost a lot of gold. All the risks I take generally have little to no chances of back firing. Occasionally I will trying buying out all the twilight jasmine, or some other random material, and raise the price up to make some quick gold.  Only to be undercut a few minutes later and I end up selling them for what I bought them for or slightly less.

What are your future plans with WoW?

I will continue to raid for a long time as that is my number 1 passion in the game. I will slow down with the gold making, and focus more on pvp. Going to start trying for high ratings in pvp and arenas.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

I am banking on Truegold, volatiles (except volatile life), pristine hides, savage leather. are all going to go up in price a decent amount for the first few weeks of 4.2. I still recommend picking up pyrite ore as its my GUESS, that it will epic gems will be prospected from them at some point.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for Warcraft Econ. Do you have any last words?

Once again thank you very much to the admin of this site especially.  Now that I have the time again I look forward to getting back to writing gold making articles for Warcraft Econ. Feel free to contact me in game, or leave me comments here. If I am in a raid I will not be able to answer, but I love talking about gold and how to make more of it.