Hall of Fame – 500K Gold Club: Oesophagus of Llane-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, Oesophagus of Llane-US, who will be sharing their story with us today.

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

Hmm. I’m 23, I live in New Zealand, and I play on Llane (US), I’ve used several bank alts between early WOTLK and now.  I grew up playing console games, we got a computer when I was about 11, and I used to spend hours playing Age of Empires. I’ve played WoW since classic, I’ve had…at least two “mains” per expansion, I started Cata as a resto/bear druid, switched to prot/holy paladin, currently a blood/frost chillblains kite spec DK. I’ve levelled everything to at least 80, most classes to 85.

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

I don’t really do either anymore. I raided a lot at the end of WoTLK as my server had a lot of gdkps and I had a lot of alts and gold…since Cata however, I’ve only gone to casual/alt raids. I hate feeling like I “have” to log in. PvPing, I also haven’t done much lately. In the few seasons I played, I’ve been a resto druid, resto shaman and holy paladin. I got weapon rating but never pushed much higher than 2k. Honestly at this point, the only thing I really enjoy in the game is watching my gold go up while talking to friends.

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

As above, it’s the only thing I really enjoy – everything else feels somewhat stale to me. Plus, as somebody that struggled to by epic flight for the first time in BC, it’s nice to be able to buy whatever I’d like without having to worry about the price.

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

Oh, so many ways. The best advice I could give to anybody would be something that’s been repeated a thousand times – branch out, don’t just stick to one market. I don’t really read gold blogs anymore, although I did in WoTLK, so I don’t know if it’s been mentioned anywhere, but wrath gems have been amazing for me. Not just the obvious (cardinals), but for example, I regularly sell +20 haste for 300g, Nightmare Tear for 400g, and even just random cuts – as I’m typing this, I just sold a Lightning Eye of Zul of all things for 250g. I tend to go for markets that are otherwise untapped, in WoTLK I was a major fan of the glyph market, as well as netherweave bags/gems/flasks, but these days I just don’t want to play the cancel/relist game until somebody logs out. Oh, and buying up other peoples orbs to craft the new BoE weapons. There’s always somebody willing to go through the hell of 5man heroics just so they can sell you chaos orbs for 500g. At any rate, I ended WoTLK with around 300k, and (while spending on the typical BoEs/vials) have come up 200k since while spending about 1/10^th of the time at the AH, simply by finding things I can list and forget for 48 hours.

What is your master list?

I try to keep a splattering of Wrath gems up as I mentioned, also I still have a few of the new BoEs to sell. Also, random engi pets – the bombling, the toad, lil smoky, even mechanical squirrels on occasion. Primal Might, Air and Fire all sell amazingly well at times. I’ve also been selling a few executioner scrolls, since the removal of ZA as a level 70 raid, there’s very little chance of competition. +40 stamina to bracers is a very good enchant, or more to the point, the other options for tanks in that slot are less than ideal. I try to list a few of those when I can.

What items are in your Snatch list?

Any cheap WoTLK gems, definitely. Also, titanium ore – people still buy the powder for ~40g per, so it’s worth prospecting for sure. Other than that, any of the mats for the engi pets listed above, and occasionally netherweave when I feel like some money while I afk. Motes of fire/air tend to be significantly cheaper than what you can sell the primal for. I also tend to get most of my executioner mats from my weekly runs of level 70 raids, but there’s still the occasional time when it’s worth buying up void crystals to shatter into large prismatics. Abyss crystal shattering is pretty good money as well. If I can’t find enough netherweave to fill in my afk time, I buy Nexus crystals and convert them to prismatics while afk – it’s not much profit, but gold is gold and it’s more or less effort free.

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

I think the first gold blog I read frequently was Gevlons. Aside from his blog, the people at theunderminejournal – o-m-g. So much love for them. It helped me stalk a few of the other major sellers on my server in order to find different markets back in WoTLK.

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

Just auctionator. I used auctioneer, quickauctions and a handful of other mods in WoTLK, but I don’t find them necessary now I’m not mass relist/cancelling. Auctionator isn’t really needed, I just like the interface more than default.

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

I suppose I’d like a million. I’m moving overseas soon, and I should focus on my coursework until then, but at some point it would be nice. I’m not close, I have ~550k at the moment, and about 100k in mats/boes in my guild bank.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

Yes, most of my friends know – people tend to ask questions when you spend 50k on Deathbringers Will (when it was still ArP) for your paladin tank purely for the random shapeshift procs in 5mans. I don’t think many random people would know as I sell on multiple characters, but I wouldn’t be particularly concerned if they did.

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

Absolutely, as above with Deathbringers Will. I also geared all 10 of my characters In mostly 264 from gdkps before Cata. Since the demise of GDKP on my server, I’ve more or less just bought whatever BoEs I felt like, I’ve quite literally spent over 100k on the BoE plate tank shoulders for all three of my plate tank. Also, one of my closest friends has been known to reap the benefits of my auction house farming on several occasions. She paid me back by giving me my first poptart (not a euphemism, we just don’t sell them inNew Zealand.)

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

I guess the main thing would be that it’s only a game; if you make a poor decision and lose a few thousand gold, don’t dwell on it, just learn from it and move on. One random thing I often do when I’m the only seller of an item I have multiples of, is post one at an absolutely ridiculous price and then “undercut” myself on an alt for the price I actually want for it – seems to work amazingly well with BoE epics…if nothing else because it gets free advertising when people complain in trade about something being up for 150k+

How about an advanced gold making class?

Find your own ‘weird’ items to sell instead of trying to copy somebody elses – it’s extremely easy to get burnt out spending a hundred hours a week looking at the AH. Or, as was the case in WoTLK, a hundred hours a week looking at the wall while you used interact with target to be able to talk to Auctioneer Jaxon and use the mailbox without moving.

Do you have any good farming strategies or spots?

Firelands BoEs are amazing at the moment. I also love BC raids. I’ve sold a few sunwell patterns for over 10k, one for 40k. Even the boot patterns from TK/SSC sell for a few hundred each and the BT patterns for a few thousand. If you can get a friend to help you with BWL, the ore still sells well whenever somebody needs to craft their legendary.

What was the best deal you ever came across?

I picked up the TCG bear for 15k during WoTLK. I resold it for about 80, although it did take quite a while. Rare mounts are one of those things you can almost always guarantee will sell eventually for a ridiculous amount, so I’m a fan of picking them up when I can.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

Hah, I bought up every razzashi hatchling when they announced its removal, paid 12k for one, had about 20 in total…a week later, blizz announced that it would actually continue to drop. I’ve gotten rid of them all now, but I think the best sale I’ve had for one was 6k. Was a fairly big loss, was quite angry for a week or two and hoped they’d change their minds again.

What are your future plans with WoW?

As above, I’m probably going to cut back on playtime considerably for a while, after that who knows. I’d like to get back into raiding at some point in Cata, but until then anything I can find to do casually. Perhaps I’ll go back to Warglaive farming. In the more immediate future, I still have some weeklies to finish up, so my alts will be selling off another few pairs of valour bracers.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

Honestly, I have no idea. I’m fairly sure that prices overall will continue to go up, there’s so much gold to be earned even by players who hate the AH/Farming, just from dailies or even doing the weekly dungeon randoms…but the prices for raw mats will probably drop again soon as people get bored with the new content and go back to farming. I’m not stocking up on anything in particular at this time, I have some pyrite ore but after the ZG hatchling I mentioned earlier, I’ve been slightly more wary of investing too much into one idea of what I think Blizzard might do.

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?

Well, I’ve never spent $15000 on a real life bear, heh. However, I do spend a fair amount of time on TradeMe (New Zealandsversion of eBay) applying some similar techniques to those used in WoW – buying things in bulk or when somebodys in a hurry to sell, then reselling it for 3x as much a week later.

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

Sure. If you’re planning on going into a market with lots of competition, and lots of crafting time; find a good TV show to make it less obnoxious. Dexter starts again in October, so now is an excellent time to rewatch last season.