Hall of Fame – 1 Million Gold Cap Club: Maiesha of Silvermoon-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 obtained 500k and 250k. We have with us, Maiesha of Silvermoon-US, who will be sharing their story with us today.

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

Hello, I’m Maiesha from Silvermoon-US. My world of warcraft gaming experience started three months after initial release. I have been a gaming fan ever since I was young, liking a variety of games ranging from Rpgs, Strategies and Shoot’em ups, but out of all the different types of games, Rpgs are my preferred style, as I like to develop my characters every day. I am still a big Final Fantasy fan, although Wow probably trumps that now. My first character in Wow is a  troll hunter and I rolled a blood elf paladin at the release of BC which I have been playing since. Maiesha has 400+ days play time and counting.

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

I am a raider at heart. Ever since my raiding experience started on my hunter, I have found that I have rarely lost the appeal to show up to raid. While playing the hunter, I was very new to the game and still learning the ropes, but soon discovered my ability to see the whole battlefield and the passion for a leading role in raids. At the release of BC, I became the RL for the guild on my pally, and later on in Wotlk the GM. We managed to become the number one raiding guild on Silvermoon for the expansion, with titles and mounts and Gold to show for it. I have a great passion for gaming, and strife to achieve the highest possible. While being the GM for the guild in Wotlk, I started to seriously manage the gbank, started looking seriously at the auction house and developed an understanding for the workings of in game crafting and trading. This game is certainly addictive as much as it is enjoyable!

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

Gold has been at the top of my priority list ever since a few days into playing the game. The struggle of leveling up in Vanilla just to talk to the trainer before noticing you don’t have enough gold to pay for your training, and a mount at 40 then another at 60, has taken it’s toll. Initially I would spend hours farming materials from the ground, whether it’s ores or herbs to supply myself and where there were extras, I would sell for an income. Gold has been important to me as I like the option to be able to buy what I need, no matter what the price, but more so for the guild. I remember resist gear for raids costing a fortune before blizzard took out resist fights. I found out that there is a gold cap shortly before Cata, and decided that I would spend a few hours each day to go for it. This decision is based on my attitude to try to be the best I can be in various aspects of the game. Plus, who doesn’t want more gold?

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

My gold making ventures started out at level 60, where I had to borrow to buy an epic mount. I wanted to pay the friend back, had no idea how so started farming up ore and herbs to sell. I had no real strategy other than burning time to gather at that point in game. While it is nothing exciting, I did make enough to have extra gold to survive repairs for raids, I guess hunters don’t really repair back then do they?

My first real gold making idea was to farm ZG for bloodvines. They were selling well with craftables in high demand from raiders. If I recall around 20g each on Silvermoon-US. I managed to find a strategy to solo farm the place on my hunter. There were two spawn points near the entrance that I would reset after picking the herbs up. As to how? Well, that took a few tries to work out. I would distract the trash packs guarding the herbs with my pet, have it dash back to the entrance, hide behind a pillar, while I run in and pick up the prize. Afterwards I would run to a safe spot, Feign Death, walk out of instance and reset. Doing this would net around 80-100g per hour. It wasn’t long before I drove the market down to the point where I had so much stock, there just wasn’t the demand on horde side, so I decided to cross faction AH the bloodvines and sell it to alliance. My account had around 8000g at the start of BC, when I decided to switch to the current paladin.

My paladin took two and a half weeks to lvl to 70, first on server and with an epic flier as soon as I dinged 70. There were no instances to farm now, so once again I did it the old fashion way to make gold, crusade aura + gather. Yes all those hours flying around gathering while not raiding. Nothing to be proud about. In Wotlk, as a raiding guild, we sold achievement mounts and titles to players willing to pay, and netting around 3-5k each on a good week.

Not much changed for me until the start of Cata, after I had decided to go for the gold cap. At that time I was sitting at around 200k gold that I farmed up selling herbs and ores on an alt. By then, my professions were Alchemy + Jewel Crafting on Maiesha. I dropped Alchemy for Mining to take advantage of the super high prices of mats while everyone tried to push their way to 525 skill. The first few weeks, I sold a lot of uncut green quality gems to JCs on the server, was the only one prospecting pyrite for a few weeks. Basically almost everyone had a JC of some sort as it was the preferred profession for bonuses for the longest time. The strategy at this time was to buy what ore I could find at a reasonable price prospect it and sell it. If I found extra time, I would do laps of Twilight Highlands for ore. Going around hitting up nodes was profitable for around a month, at which point it wasn’t worth the gold per hour.

The second stage of my gold strategy was to level enchanting and alchemy on my alt, high enough to DE greens and blues, and to transmute gems. I thought long and hard about how to make more gold and concluded that since Silvermoon-US is a high population server, there would be demand for gems and enchants every day as players picked up new gear. I knew this was the opportunity as I needed to be time efficient on my operations by mass producing, otherwise trying for 1 million gold would prove the longest grind that destroys my gaming experience. I could turn out hundreds of gems just spamming the one key, afked in Orgrimmar after buying ore from farmers and the auction house. Below is my in depth strategy.

Firstly, I would buy ore at a discount to value, it’s like going to the store looking to see what’s on discount, except if it’s on discount, you buy it all. By doing this you will destroy your rival’s supply. Having a 200k start made it possible. Right now you might ask, yeah sounds easy but how do you know if it is a discount? To find out, I would estimate what I would get out of 100 stacks of ore from the experience I gained in the prior month prospecting ore, then check wowhead to see if it is something similar to what I have been seen. Then pull out a spread sheet and calculate the amount each gem is worth if dealt with the most optimal way. This could be straight up selling uncuts, cut gems, making a ring/neck to DE/sell or transmuting. Once I have these numbers, the aim is to buy ore with a 25% discount or more. This ensure you make a profit, and in worst case, you don’t make a loss. Ideally 50% discount value or more is best. That way you get the most bang for your time processing ore.

Secondly, I purchased enough cuts for each colored rare gem, so that I would get enough sales. You don’t need every cut there is in game. If you are out of stock then that’s it. Now it’s just a matter of time, going through and prospecting the ore, making rings and necks, cutting gems and listing them three times a day. I would list my auctions right at peak hour, which is around 5pm give or take 1 hour, then relist them at 8pm and check again at 10pm. This is trial and error based on your server. Also, 12 hours duration seems to work best. The general idea about listing times is you want them up and lowest priced when the demand is highest. This strategy is to make small amounts per sale, but have high volumes going through. There are a lot of lazy Wow players that you could make a few gold from per auction because it is just way easier to grab the item you want from the AH. Before you know it, the mailbox is full and exploding with gold coming in.

Lastly, I make scrolls out of the enchanting mats I picked up DE’ing rings and necks, and only list any surplus mats on the AH. Since scrolls sell for more than the mats on Silvermoon-US, I ensure that I always have scrolls before I sell the mats. The ‘bountyful bags’ guild talent will make you gain more from DE’ing, thus a higher profit and a competitive edge over those that don’t have it. As for transmuting, well ya, I use a transmute spec alchemist for more $$.

Then it is just repeat every day…

There is no easy short cut to making 1 million gold. It is all about a system, my system is going to be different from yours, so I encourage you to go discover what new way there are out there that might work for your server.

What is your master list?

I sell rare gems, and they are always cut depending on which is most profitable.

On days the JC daily is a green quality cut, I would sell that if it would net me more per gem.

I also sell dust, essense and enchanting scrolls, usually boots and gloves. I don’t bother with enchants that use crystals. My target are those people leveling up or just dinged 85 for my enchants to produce a high volume of sales going through.

What items are in your Snatch list?

Elementium Ore, Obsidian Ore

Pyrite Ore (prospect in the past, for keeps now)

Heartblossom, Twilight Jasmine and Cinderbloom for transmuting Red/Purple/Orange gems

I know that’s not a big list but that’s all I need, keeping it simple and systematic makes it easy.

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

I discovered this method via studying the auction house prices and discovering that it is possible to buy ore at mass volumes below their value if you do a few things with it. The market is always changing so I just keep updating my figures to keep up. At the time of writing, this method is still very profitable on Silvermoon-US.

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

The only addon I use is Auctionator to help track my auctions an to scan my shopping list for bargins. I haven’t had the need to use anything else, in fact I didn’t use an addon for the first 500k, until I messed up my auctions one day, then decided then that I needed an add on to help list my supply.

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

At the moment I will take a break from making gold, although I will occasionally list some auctions to keep me above the cap. I do have other things to do such as leveling an alt, which I have put off for a long time and does sound appealing after a long gold making mission.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

Only my close friends in Wow know I have this amount of gold, I tend to keep things to myself. Don’t want half the server begging for gold in whispers.

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

I will probably buy some new 378 boe crafted from firelands, maybe gear up some alts once they are leveled up. There are a few mounts that I still need such as vials and even the chopper. I have been putting those off for a while. I don’t see any new gold sinks at the moment, the last one was ‘the insane’ title. Maybe I will dump some gold into pyrite and play the guessing game with epic gems.

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

If I was to have a gold making 101 class, the first thing I would talk about is being self sufficient, if you don’t want to pay someone else a premium for the things you need, then do it yourself.

I would also discuss the need to be frugal when it comes to alts. There are many examples of players spending a bucket of gold on their alts, unless the investment in your alt is going to net you gold return down the track, then I certainly would not suggest spending that gold.

How about an advanced gold making class?

To make a lot of gold you will need a good system, one that keeps up to date with the market, and a production line. Every server has it’s own needs, thus I would suggest finding out what the player base of the server tend to buy, and then have your own production line to mass produce the goods to increase efficiency. For example, on a Pve based raiding server, there would be a need for gear enhancement items and consumables, where as on a Role play server the demands would be quiet different. Research and information is key to success.

It is also very important to be patient and be repetitive in your routine, as it does take time to accumulate gold. Patience.

Do you have any good farming strategies or spots?

I don’t farm anymore although, I have heard of players farming up volatile air from Vortex Pinnacle normal mode, since the 365 crafted weapons are in high demand and use truegold, which in turn uses volatile air. On a side note, post in 10s, sells better from past experience.

What was the best deal you ever came across?

I cannot recall any awesome deals, although I have made plenty of great deals with ore farmers in the past. 300 stacks of ore for almost next to nothing? That’s the best I have done.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

I have made some mistakes along the way. Such as listing items per stack instead of per one, then finding out the next day in the mailbox. Yes, learn to use a mod, I learnt the hard way.

What are your future plans with WoW?

I am playing casually now, although I still enjoy making a few gold out of the auction house. Raiding wise, 1 night a week maybe? Not really interested in Pvp, so would probably go play an alt with friends.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

I think the recent tier has brought up the Wow economy, prices have gone up due to demand, but as the tier progress there will be a dull period where margins will shrink for sellers as players will have geared out their characters. All the hype will be back again next tier, and the biggest question on everyone’s mind is ‘epic gems’? Where from? If you ask my opinion, I would say pyrite ore and transmuted. Although I wouldn’t rule out them being zone drops. I would also expect chaos orbs to be Boe at some stage as well. Going further, blizzard will add in welfare gems for all and the market will vote it down in price. If you want to roll the dice, then I would buy up truegold at the end of this tier, as next one will almost certaintly contain something craftable.

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?

I’m good with numbers I run my own fund management business. I see similarities with my business and what I have done to make the gold cap. Remember, you make your money when you buy, not when you sell.

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

I want to thank everyone for reading my thoughts. Especially to warcraftecon.net for their site. Enjoy the game and best of luck everyone!