Hall of Fame – 250K Gold Club: Mildenhall of Drak’Tharon-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, Mildenhall of Drak’Tharon-US, who will be sharing their story with us today.

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

Hello everyone my main character is Mildenhall, a Nightelf Hunter on Drak’Tharon US server.  I am a 33, live inAlabamaand I have played WoW since mid-vanilla.  I have been playing video games since the Atari 2600.  I have owned most every console and found enjoyment in playing against my brothers and friends while growing up. My first  online RPG was Everquest 2 when it came out on the Playstation 2.  I had mostly played console games like Mortal Kombat and fighters in that genre. Then in my first year in the Air Force I bought a cheap Compaq Presario. I love playing flight sims on it.  I finally stared playing CPU games like Counter-Stike and other FPS.  Then I upgraded to an Alienware.  I spent 4k on  it and regret it to this day.  It was a beast, but had I known that in two to three years the parts would be outdated I would have kicked myself in the butt.  I eventually realized that I could build my own for dirt cheap and upgrade as I needed for 5 times less the price of that high end machine.  Thus, I custom build my own PC’s now.

I was introduced to WoW by a friend when I returned home after serving 6 years for my country.  I started a rogue on his account.  I loved killing people from stealth, I just thought it was the coolest.  So, I bought my own copy shortly after.  The rest is history.

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

I raid end game two nights a week and occasionally on Sunday.  I have cleared all previous content in game with the exception of most hard modes and we are  7/7 Firelands normal.  I do arenas every week.  I enjoy raiding, PVP, making gold, playing alts and leveling professions(and long walks on the beach).  As of this writing I have 5 level 85’s with all gathering and crafting professions maxed out except blacksmithing witch is maxed on my 75 alt rogue.  My main has cooking, fishing, first aid and I have Archaeology on two characters maxed still with no bug mount or Vial of the Sands.  GRRRRRRR!!!!  WTB farmer for the vial of the sands.  So I enjoy the game by doing all aspects of the game honestly.  I raid, make gold, pvp, level alts/professions and I am an achievement hunter as well.  Though achievements have been on hold since I have been trying to make gold. I am oly at 9880 ish.

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

It was just the first mile-stone to my goal of 1 million.  My guild was at a lull in raiding at the end of WotLK and I needed something to do with my time other then leveling alts.  Quest after quest, after quest, after quest gets very boring.  Specially after 5 maxed characters.  I had heard of some wow stories of people hitting 1 Million gold and set out to see how and if I could do that on my server.  I was not until well into 4.0 that I decided to start serious auction house PVP.  So I have only been at it for a bit.

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

My main goal was to be self-sufficient in making my gold by having all professions at my disposal.  Yes, I could have requested help from other crafters in my guild and at times I did for rare patterns and chaos orbs or whatever else I though I could use but did not have myself.

Most of my gold income has been from jewelcrafting.  I would have to say there was nothing special about my plight of making gold.  I would scan the AH and craft gems that were selling.  If a certain gem was listed under the value I thought I could get for it then I would buy them out and re-list.

I would by bulk herbs and shuffle them into darkmoon cards, mysterious fortune cards and sometimes glyphs.  My glyph market was always saturated so I did not spend too much effort there.  I would shuffle ore into raw gems to sale for the JC daily or for cutting rare gems to post on the AH.  I would also craft JC jewelry to disenchant and make scrolls.  I would say that my next best income would be from scrolls.  The new leatherworking and tailoring bags from the molten front have made me about 40k gold. All from one buyer, who will remain anonymous, but I want to thank him for coming to me for his request.

The general routine was to post in the morning, check those post before I left for work and cancel and re-list if necessary.  I work a 12noon to 8pm job so that allowed me to do this a little easier than most.  After work if I did not have softball or another activity I was doing I would log on to cancel and re-list again.  Some nights I had raids and would have to wait until after the raid at midnight to cancel and re-list.  Weekends I would check a bit more but generally it was no more than 2 to 4 times a day.  I had my competition on my friends list and would monitor them anytime I was on to make sure when they left to log and re-list and undercut.  I read a lot of blogs and have taken in a lot of information from my predecessors.  To which I would like to thank those that offer their gold making information for free.  The world is just too greedy these days.

I dabble in other professions and markets on a random basis.  I will have a bug to go buy all the vendor pets and list those until I sale out.  I do however craft and have at least one of each engineering pet up on the AH at all times.  I make decent gold from those but it’s a slow sale sometimes.  At first, due to the pet achievement I would get a lot of sales, now it has dwindled as time passed and everyone received their pets they needed for the achievement.

I would also participate in my guilds GDKP runs and that would net a few thousand gold a week, unless I bought an item for an alt. J

What is your master list?

I have no specific items on a “list”.  I will craft more of the red rare quality gems than any other.  I have sold most everything under the sun in Azeroth.  Darkmoon cards, fortune cards, glyphs, raw mats, pets (crafted and vendor bought), rare recipes, BOE items farmed from trash, enchanting scrolls and mats, flasks, pots and potions.  Anything that can turn a profit I have sold at one time or another.  The most prominent ones are from jewelcrafting and enchanting.  So my list consist of anything that can make a profit.

What items are in your Snatch list?

I don’t keep a snatch list per say.  I search the AH for all raw Cataclysm mats as I start to get low and buy them when they are cheap.  I don’t stockpile too much.  I try to keep what I need for a week on hand with a few exceptions.  I will but out raw mats of any kind even if I am not going to use them right away.  But I wont go out of my way to make sure I have exactly 5 stacks of said item on hand just to have it.

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

All the gold blogs and people who put out free information about gold making.  I bought a gold guide way back in BC and it was hogwash.  I would have been better off burning the paper it was printed on to make ashes for a garden or something (if that’s even plausible).  Just My Two Copper and The Undermine Journal are a few of the sites that have been helpful along the way.  I have about 20 sites in my favorites list but no sense in listing them all.  Most of these sites have blog rolls for everyone to see and are very easy to find most of them with a google search.

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

I use so many general add-ons, 50 or more.  Specific gold making add-ons are: Auctioneer, Auctionator, Trade Skill Manager, Postal, Lil Sparky’s Workshop, Panda, Analyst, Ore Crusher, Mysales, Arkinventory ß (huge for sorting my items and remembering what items are on my alts and in the auction house), SLData Text to watch my competition, Recipe Profit.  I think that is about it.

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

I will be going for at least 1 million.  My goal while going for this new amount will be to invest and stockpile more.  I generally use and buy what I need for a week or so.  I intend to get the stockpile to a months worth of crafting while I press for 1 million.  No I am not close as at the time of posting this I have only just accumulated a little over 280k.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

Most of my guild does.  I chat with some people in the guild about gold making prospects all the time.  I keep them updated on my endeavors.  I talk to my close real life  friends that used to play the game about my gold making.  I also have my brother and a few friends on RealID that I chat with about my gold making and keep him up to date on my progress.  I give them some gold tips so they can make some gold on their server.

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

I buy a few things here and there, nothing extravagant. I did buy the vendor mammoth right before Cataclysm for my main as I had 30k gold and had not planned on having a gold making venture.  I wish I would have saved that gold now, but that mammoth has seen his glory days of repairing my guilds gear in the middle of raids when we don’t have an engineer handy.  So I would say he was worth it somewhat.

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

Patience!!!  I have listed Darkmoon cards for a few weeks before they would sell.  I have friends that post under everyone and make the prices fall and had I not had the patience I have to wait then I would be a lot less wealthy.  A good friend in game always tells me he post just to get a quick turn around.  Man I give him so much crap about that.  It eats me up to see him post his cards for 5k.  But no worries, I just wait it out.  I sell mine after his are gone for sometimes twice what he received.  People will pay the price you ask almost 9 times out of 10.  You just have to be patient.

Diversity is a very important key in making gold.  Some weeks gems will not sell that great but I will have a mailbox full of sold enchanting scrolls or mats.  Make sure you have a stake in a few markets.  OR even better as many markets as you can reasonably manage.  Some markets will be great one day and no sales the next.  So to keep that gold flowing in make sure you have a couple of ways to make it.  Do not put all your eggs in one basket.

How about an advanced gold making class?

I would let them know of all the free knowledge there is out there from the gold making community.  Sites such as The Undermine Journal, Warcraft Econ and many of the add-ons that help streamline the process of crafting and posting and collecting mail.

Read patch notes and not only think about what class mechanics are changing but what will that do for your business.  Say class A is going to scale better with agility all of a sudden.  Before, class A was gemming agility/haste gems.  Now they are going to be swapping for all out 40 agility gems.  See what happened there.  Stocking up on red gems would net you a pretty copper.

Do you have any good farming strategies or spots?

When I first started and even before I stared making gold I would farm my own materials for crafting.  If I wanted raiding flasks I would herb myself and the same goes for any ore or skinning materials I needed.  So I know may way around www.wowhead.com to find out where to go farm if I wanted something.  However, there are add-ons to make your life easier.  Gatermate 2 is an add-on that will show you where nodes are around Azeroth and make flying between them easier to navigate.  It shows the locations on your main map and your mini-map. A must have for ore and herb farming.

For gathering professions there are plenty of guides out there. Google it.  As far as rare items, if you are a class than can solo them, a lot of the old world raids and instances have many items from boe’s to materials for crafting Sulfuras or Thunderfury that are very valuable to people and guilds trying to get those achievements.  Farm those raids and instances.  Also many patterns and boe recipes from old content can be sold for a great value if you are lucky and patient enough to farm them.  I have a tip for level 55plus characters.  In northwest Silithus there are tornado elementals that drop Essence of Air required for twink and boa agility enchants.  Very valuable.

What was the best deal you ever came across?

Hmmmmm….I have bought and flipped many items and many have been for great profits and I really can’t remember a specific super great deal from anyone of them.  I have bought cheap Darkmoon cards and resold them for double the cost.  That’s about the only thing that stands out.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

Yes!  Stupid Dream Dust.  I bought so much of it to flip and every other day is listed for a low price.  I think someone on my server has found a vendor that sells them for 10 copper.  I cant seem to get rid of it in any form.  I have even tried scrolls but they are listed too low as well.  That was a bad investment.  I eventually ended up selling them as scrolls but it was a painful process.

What are your future plans with WoW?

Raiding, more arena’s, make more gold and leveling alts.  I could pull a Pinky and the Brain and try to take over the world……..of warcraft.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

With so much information out there about gold making it’s a only a matter of time before most of it is common knowledge.  There will always be some money makers people won’t know about until the market is overrun or depleted of the major sales from said item.  I think as patches and expansions come more gold will be made with new items and elementals needed for crafting, but people will catch on to these trends and start making their own gold.

On the other hand there will be people who are lazy and impatient and that is always good for lining my bags with gold.

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 am not at all the same.  I will spend my real money on games and other stuff really not needed from time to time and while I want to be wealthy I don’t really save or invest.  I don’t want to work all the time just to be sitting on money when im 60 and not able to have fun with it like I can when I’m 30.

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

I would like to thank sites like Warcraft Econ and others for their information about gold making. Without them I would have just been another guy making a little gold here and there and not having the gold making ability I have now.

A reminder to all new gold entrepreneurs to be patient in your sales.  It makes a world of difference.  Also, be nice to other players.  I once despised my competition and would try to do anything to thwart their sales.  I found out just by sending them a tell here and there that most are willing to work together to help each other make gold and keep us all from losing more by constant undercutting.  And by making a friend that way, he bought all those bags from me that I wrote about earlier that netted my 40k gold and pushed me over 250k.