Hall of Fame – 1 Million Gold Cap Club: Powerstrokin of Mal’ganis-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, Powerstrokin of Mal’ganis-US, who will be sharing their story with us today.

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

I primarily play under my death knight, PowerStrokin on Mal’ganis-US, and I’ve been playing wow (on and off) since beta.  I have always been in Goon Squad, and I’ve always been a raider.  Recently I got into low level pvp, as money buys you fun there.  I mainly play Team Fortress 2 though.

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

I’m definitely a PvE player.  As a team players i’ve filled whatever roll was needed at the time, but I greatly prefer tanking.  I’ve completed most raids with only original naxx and sunwell left unfinished.  I really don’t like PvP, as it is a positive feedback system.  The winners get better gear which allows them to win more easily.  Like I said before though, I recently got in to low level pvp, which is about as unfair as it can get.

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

Up until ICC I have always been completely self sufficient.  I’ve never really needed gold except to buy a flying mount.  When ICC came out, I really wanted a Shadowmourne.  With Primordial Saronites going for 2k on my server I obviously needed to start collecting some gold.  I primarily learned how to make money from a gold making thread on Something Awful.  My dad is actually a financial planner and gave me some great advice on knowing your markets and doing research.  Yes, he did laugh at me for taking a video game so seriously.  I finally got Shadow’s Edge, and stopped collecting gold until Cata.  Once it hit, I saw so much gold being thrown around I decided to hit the gold cap.  I never did get my Shadowmourne though.

How did you go about getting to the gold cap? Any creative or original ideas?

Inscription: The glyph market is insanely competitive on Mal’Ganis, so I stayed out of that, but I made a small fortune alone on DMF cards.

Enchanting: This was my main money maker for a long time.  Up until the nerf to disenchanting alchemist trinkets, I owned the maelstrom crystal market on mal’ganis.  I easily made hundreds of thousands of gold from them.  Thusly I also owned most of the high end enchant markets for a long while.

Jewelcrafting: Selling cut rares,  and also doing the Obsidium shuffle.

Alchemy: I did true gold transmutes until that market crashed, and now I just tranmute air on my 6 alchemists every day.  This has proven to be an amazing source of base income.  I also transmute rare gems when the margins are right.

Leatherworking: Didn’t get into that game until around 2 months ago.  Despite what people say, this turned out to be a steady stream of money.  I sold a ton of pvp gear, I assume to people trying to get their ilvl up.

What is your master list?

Honestly I didn’t even know what this term meant until about a month ago.  Because of the timing, it is primarily pvp leather working gear and cut gems.

What items are in your Snatch list?

The only things actually on my snatch list are lvl 77-79 Cata greens.  I will buy anything under 100g and resell it (in time) for 400g.  I got the idea for this when I noticed that all the lvl 77 Cata gear was being sold by one guy.  I looked him up on the Undermine Journal, and noticed he was doing this with a bunch of the low level gear.  Considering he was the only player in town, I decided to hop on board too.

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

Well as I mentioned earlier, the gold making thread on Something Awful was my starting off point.  They were the ones who taught me to have a few alchemist alts to do transmutes each day.  They recommended having two, so naturally I leveled 6.  Again my dad gave me some great advice on macro topics.  Other than that it is all really “buy low, sell high.”

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

I have always used auctionator to post and check on auctions.  That was the only thing I used up until about a month or two ago when I finally got around to setting up TSM.  TSM has just made it so easy to post all the pvp leather items I sell.

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

Nope.  Honestly I’m pretty tired of this game, and with all the great games coming out in the next 6+ months, I’m just going to raid and not worry about cash.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

My guild now knows, my raid group has always known.  I never kept it as secret, but I rarely bragged about it either.  I’m not the richest person in my guild.  The other tank in my raid constantly has less than 2k gold and I try to help him out a lot, but he refuses to try.

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

The only “dumb” thing I have bought is the stone drake mount.  I might buy a chicken mount, but I’ll probably just save it for when a raid comes out and I want some BoEs.  One idea I had a while back was to create an alt that pretends to be a npc in a starter zone.  I would tell new characters to fetch me some bear asses and give them gold for it.  I doubt it would work well now with no new players, but it would still be fun.

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

Every day I would teach a new way to “buy low, sell high”.  I really can’t say how important that concept is.  As for the bigger picture, I would talk about how professions really help out eachother.  For instance if you are a jewelcrafter you have to have an enchanter somewhere.  The Obsidium Shuffle was too much of a money maker not to have that set up.  The key to a 101 class would be simplicity and ways to make gold with low risk.

How about an advanced gold making class?

As others have said, I would also talk about how to investigate new markets and how to seek them out.  Risk would also be a major focus in an advance class.  Trying to control markets is a great example for this.  I actually controlled the heavenly shard market from 4.1 until people started to find out about Stormforged Shoulders.  It was a high risk move, but it paid off spectatularly.

Do you have good farming strategies or spots?

I only farm the auction house.  I suggest you do this in one of two places.  Either in the troll town in Org, you can just fly up and down from a mailbox and the auction house.  Or you do it in the auction house near the JC quest giver, so you can log in and do your daily real quick.

What was the best deal you ever came across?

My best deal was easrly on in Cata, when I noticed I couldn’t disenchant my alchemist trinkets anymore.  At this point a lot of people knew about that trick and supply outmatched demand by a great deal, so the prices were really low.  I found out Blizzard hotfixed this before anyone else did and I bought out all 50+ crystals for under 1k each.  I sold them all for over 2k each, 15 of them for 5k each.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

I’m an extremely risk adverse person, so I don’t really have any bad stories.  The worst was actually when I was controlling the heavenly shard market and someone posted about 60 shards up at once for 90g each.  I was trying (successfully) to keep the price above 100g, so I bought them all out.  Well this person, best I could tell, found out about the Stormforged Shoulders before I did, and took advantage of that.  He got a ton of my money, and I think I might have broken even eventually.  This was actually when I started to get out of that market.

What are your future plans with WoW?

My plan is to only log in to do my JC daily, transmutes, and raid.  If I continue to play after Cata, then I suppose I should level all my characters to 85.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

Its a bit odd.  The richer will keep getting richer and the poor will stay about the same.  Supply and demand will always remain king, so I expect you’ll see margins get razor thin as time goes on.  The only way you’ll be able to make a ton of money is to diversify, which probably isn’t a bad thing.

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 only real carry over is that I’m a risk adverse person in real life too.  I would actually love to start getting into the stock market though.  It’s really low right now and its a perfect time to buy, but you have to have the start up capital, which is sadly something I don’t really have the luxury of having.

What your favorite artists, songs, movies, shows, or streams to watch while you are making gold?

I watch entirely too much stuff on Hulu.  I’ve watched all three seasons of Arrested Development too many times to count, and it never gets old.  I watch that mainly when I’m having my macro disenchant, mill, and prospect stuff.  I also listen to a bunch of indie pop, punk, and bluegrass music.

What are your thoughts on the real money auction house that will be implemented in Diablo 3? How will you take advantage of this new change?

I’m actually titillated over it.  I only see two possible outcomes.  Either its going to be a complete gold mine as the casual player will gladly spend $5 on that shinny new sword.  Or only auction house barons use it and no one really makes any money, but I doubt you’ll lose much at all.  I honestly see the future of gaming as primarily free-to-play with various microtransactions as the actual cash flow for the studio.  I know a lot of pc gamers don’t like that idea, and I’m honestly not sure why.  This way you get to legitamately play the real game for free (no stupid limited demos) and you pay only what you want to pay.  Its a fantastic and brilliant counter to piracy.

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

I’d just like to thank all the Goons who have made this game enjoyable for so many years.  I would also like to thank Mal’ganis for being the best server to play on.  Honestly its one of a kind.