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

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

I am Ryankam, a warrior on US-Drak’Thul. Growing up I played a fair amount of video games, playing both console and computer games. I enjoy many different genres but my two favourite are FPS and, obviously, the MMORPG. As a high school student, one of my good friends, a long time WoW player from Vanilla, would always go on and on about how great WoW was, how nice the graphics looked and the feeling of doing of doing 40 man raids. Having heard about the addictive nature of the game, I was wary. Eventually though, he convinced me to join him on Mal’ganis-US midway through the Wrath expansion – I was instantly hooked. The world was really as amazing as he made it out to be, the loot was shiny and the raids and dungeons addicting. I played hard throughout the latter half of wrath, but eventually burned out/realized how much of my time WoW was consuming, and quit in the fall of 2010. I pretty much didn’t touch WoW until the summer of this year, when my friend again convinced me to play, and I was back into the game. It’s been super fun, as it was the first time but I don’t know for how much longer I’ll continue to play, as work and other commitments are really beginning to pile up.

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

I mostly raid, but I also PvP a fair amount. In the prime of my Cata WoW experience, I was Valor and Conquest capped every week, without fail. Mostly though, I raid weekly with my guild. I’m 7/7 normal in FL and something weird like 1/7 HM (Fandral, not Shannox, don’t ask why). I really enjoy raiding, I get a kick out of topping charts and I love the feeling you get from that next big gear upgrade. I also obviously enjoy playing the AH game and amassing gold. Mostly though, I didn’t want to be one of those players who only knew how to play the AH game and sucked at all other aspects of the game, which in my opinion, is a lot of players who choose to make gold. What’s the point of collecting gold if you’re bad at PvE AND PvP?

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

I don’t actually have a good reason why I chose to collect this amount specifically. It might have been because I got lucky with a world boss kill and sold Xariona’s Spectral Gauntlets for 9k back in June, or it might have been because I was bored at work and somehow found my way to the online gold blogging community. Eventually though, it just hit me that I didn’t want to always be stuck at under 10k gold – I wanted to have enough to gold to buy whatever I wanted or needed, and not have to mindlessly farm to do it. I also decided to amass this amount of gold because I couldn’t stand the thought of being one of those people begging for gold. Some misplaced sense of self-respect, I guess.

Anyone or resource you would like to thank?

When I first got into gold making, I read a lot of different WoW gold resources – Greedy Goblin (I also love Gevlon’s approach to WoW and social issues in general, I still continue to read that blog to this day), The Consortium, The Undermine Journal and of course, Warcraft Econ. The sources got me into the mindset of gold making and really kicked things off, so to speak. I’d also like to thank my Guildmate, Cervantes, who also took time to show me the ropes to gold making. Having already amassed a fortune himself, I learned a lot of useful stuff about gold making addons and the AH in general from him. I also attribute part of my wealth to my favourite jewelcrafter, Casylia, who has always been so helpful in processing my raw materials and always there when I needed her.

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

During Wrath, I didn’t do any serious gold-making at all. I just saved my gold and didn’t spend it on anything. My real gold-making journey began in the summer of 2011, when I decided I no longer wanted to be poor. Since then, my gold making strategies and tactics have undergone many different changes. I’ve started to do thinsg I didn’t before, and I no longer do some things that served me well in the past.

Half a year ago, when I was reading gold blogs regularly, I would see success stories of people hitting similar milestones as the one I’m writing about now, while at the same time scratching my head – there were no guides that explicitly explained how they did it. Then, I stumbled upon Sinshroud’s Outland Limited Supply guide. Now there was something I could understand! By spending my time going to remote parts of the world and picking up limited supply items and recipes from vendors, I could list them on the AH for many times what I spent to acquire them. I did this for a while as back then, it was a fairly stable and sure fire way to build up my liquid gold. I don’t do this anymore though, while I’m sure it is still very profitable, the time and inconvenience to me of doing it just isn’t worth it anymore, and I could make much more gold doing other things. Regardless, this first foray into gold making planted in me the simple idea that customers shell out gold for only two reasons. Firstly, they pay because they can’t acquire the item themselves. Secondly, they’ll pay because they can’t be bothered to get the item themselves.

Working off those two premises, I expanded my market into one of the Goblin’s staple markets – the inferno ruby market. Firstly, as an alchemist, it was convenient and easy for me to produce rubies myself (I actually switched to transmute spec because it presented higher earnings potential). Being an Herbalist was icing on the cake, so to speak, as I now had a way to convert my Heartblossom (which I would have a hard time selling on the AH due to high volume and probably being undercut immediately) into gold. Producing, cutting and selling rubies made me, and continues to make me a lot of gold. It is an easy market to get into and not one to be overlooked.

The next market I got into was the Shadowspirit diamond market. Again, as an alchemist, this seemed to be a natural progression as diamonds are needed by the entire endgame population. Thus, I invested many thousands of gold into Obsidium ore, got a trusted friend to prospect it all for me, converted it into diamonds, and had it cut. The diamond market is also very lucrative, there are many different cuts so it’s easy to find one with few competitors/low supply to jump into, and there aren’t many competitors to begin with (on my server anyways). This is a definitely another Goblin staple market, so to speak, but I rarely do this anymore because I can’t be bothered to purchase and process hundreds of stacks of Obsidium ore.

Another way I made gold was “through” flipping underpriced items of all kinds on the AH. Pretty much anything can be flipped for profit, though some markets are better for this than others. This is also a great way to make gold when you’re just starting out, or for someone who has very little liquid gold to invest. One good flip could put you several hundred or thousand gold up, for very little time and effort. I still do this now occasionally, simply by browsing various sections of the AH for goods I know are underpriced or rare.

From here on, I gradually expanded into pretty much every other profitable cata market, except for Glyphs and inscription. I tried this once but decided not to pursue it as it is too time consuming and requires me to get familiar with TSM (which I didn’t want to invest the time or effort into doing). I also have never ventured into selling enchant scrolls. While this is definitely on the more profitable Goblineering markets to get into, I simply can’t be bothered to acquire enchant mats cheaply, and I don’t feel like they sell well on my server to begin with. While every market has its own peculiarities and things to watch out for, one thing is the same in every market – value is added (profit earned, by me) through producing or modifying raw materials into a finished product. Applying this to every Cata market is pretty much a good way to go about making gold.

One thing (I wouldn’t call it a creative idea though) I definitely kept in mind throughout my gold making journey is to be fair, especially to those that help you. There are several interpretations and applications of this simple premise that I follow to this day. Firstly, I will never gouge people of their gold if, say, I am the only provider of an item on the AH. Why? There are several reasons – if the price is too high, people simply won’t buy. Being a monopolist doesn’t mean you can set the price as high as you’d like. Also, setting an artificially high price encourages competition to come in and undercut me, and I certainly don’t want that. Lastly, I really don’t need the gold – a decent profit margin is all I want, and anymore than that is unnecessary. Another interpretation of the “be fair” premise is to be kind to those that help you out. As a Goblin without an army of alts with every profession, I literally relied on others to process a large proportion of everything I sold – without them, I would be out of luck. As such, it was essential that I treat them kindly and fairly, again, for several reasons. Firstly, underpaying them or mistreating them is a guarantee that they will not work for me in the future. Secondly, my profit margins are big enough, so what’s it to share a bit of the profit with them? One example would be my Go-To jewelcrafter, who, over the months, has processed literally hundreds of stacks of obsidium ore. I routinely pay her on the scale of several hundred gold, depending on the size of the job. And why not? She is an instrumental part of my the gold-making machine that I run and it’s only fair that I share some of the profit. I’ve told her that I will pay her a Christmas bonus in the thousands and it’s a promise I plan to make good on.

My last piece of gold-making advice would be to add to your friends list all the friendly craftsmen you encounter in-game. Doing so means you will always be able to produce and post finished goods at any time of the day, especially during periods of high prices. This mostly applies to Goblins without an army of alts, like myself. Lastly, if you’re in a guild, ask guildies to disenchant for you, as you may get more enchant mats with the bountiful bags perk.

What is your master list?

My master list is basically anything that’s profitable, including:

• Bold, brilliant and delicate inferno rubies
• Shadowspirit Diamonds – most cuts
• Assorted herbs, such as Twilight Jasmine, Heartblossom, Azshara’s Veil, and the others to a lesser extent
• Assorted Ember Topaz, Amberjewel, and Demonseye cuts, and to a lesser extent ocean sapphire and dream emerald
• Ebonsteel belt buckles
• Cata enchant mats
• Drakehide, Charscale and Dragonscale Leg armors
• Netherweave and Embersilk bags
• BoEs, rare mounts and pets that I flip for profit
• What items are in your Snatch list? (In other words, a list of reagents/materials you buy consistently)
• I currently have a number of auctionator snatch lists that I check daily:
• Volatiles – all volatiles
• Ores – All cata ores and bars
• Leatherworking – All cata leather products (scraps, savage and heavy savage leather, all three leg armors and pristine hide)
• All uncommon gems
• All Cata herbs
• All Cata flasks
• All Cata enchant mats
• All cloth

How did you learn to do it?

Mostly from reading online sources, as well as lots of trial and error. You feel like a poor noob at the start but once you get into it, you’ll eventually begin to understand everything about the AH and how to use it.

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

Auctioneer and Auctionator are my only two AH addons. I also use Postal, but then again everyone should use Postal.

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

I still play the AH game, though with less vigor than I did in months past. This is due to my recently declining interest in WoW in general. If I ever get into WoW hardcore again, I would definitely shoot for 500k. For now though, I’m ok with a few thousand in sales each night until my subscription ends in a few weeks.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

I think a few of my guildies know, as well as my IRL friend who convinced me to play WoW in the first place. I recently got a humorous tell from someone saying “I was wondering if you needed a hardcore farmer, someone told me you’re the richest person on this server”, so I guess the word is getting out a bit. I definitely don’t flaunt it though so I’m actually kind of curious as to how that person found it.

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

I haven’t actually spent that much of my gold on stuff, mostly because there isn’t really anything I’d specifically like to buy. I spent gold on a few small things such as the two guild mounts, and the Hyjal bear cub and mushroom chair from Hyjal. There are other things I’ll get around to buying eventually, like the sandstone mount or mammoth mount, but I don’t really need them at the moment, and they don’t catch my eye as particularly attractive anyways. I considered buying the Firelands strength trinket but am really glad I didn’t, as I had it drop for me in a trash run a few months ago. I would like to buy the chopper soon but I can’t seem to find one on my server without some sort of ridiculous markup.

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

I would talk about the similarities between making gold in game and making money in real life. Why do I buy a hotdog from the street meat cart instead of buying the hotdog from Price Chopper and cooking it myself at home, and saving a bit of money? Because people a dollar value on convenience. Definitely has something to do with the opportunity cost of the time spent driving to the store and the time it takes to cook it. There are differences obviously but the principles are the same. People pay for convenience and for the value you add to it by modifying raw materials, and this applies to both real life and games.

How about an advanced gold making class?

In an advanced gold making class, I’d talk about dealing with competition, and the appropriate responses to competitor actions. Someone waging an undercut war? Whoever accepts the lowest profit wins. If you can find a price at which you’re still making profit and he won’t buy you out, you’ve won! If your competitor can produce the same good with lower costs than you, you won’t be able to compete – either buy him out if you’re confident he doesn’t have a huge stockpile waiting to be sold, or bow out of the market for a while and try again later. The key to dealing with competitors is to be mature about it and not get hung up one person. If someone’s undercutting makes you see red, I suggest cancelling all of your auctions and not logging for a few days. What’s the point of playing if you’re not having fun?

Do you have any good farming strategies or spots? If you don’t farm, please suggest something to farm if you had to pick the best items and locations.

I do actually farm herbs occasionally. Specifically I like to farm heartblossom and twilight jasmine, as they are the most profitable to sell, and you can turn heartblossom into inferno rubies as well. Obviously Deepholm is the only place to farm Heartblossom – Try the airship crash site, silver marsh and needlerock chasm for high node concentrations. Twilight jasmine is scattered pretty much all over Twilight Highlands so just fly around for 15 minutes or so and you’ll have a fair amount.

What was the best deal you ever came across?

The best deal I’ve ever come across would probably be uncut inferno rubies for 5g. I think it was a botter.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

One of my worst deals would probably be selling my haunted memento for only 7k to a guildmate. Granted I didn’t want it anymore, but I think I could have gotten more for it if only I’d had more patience. As a retired item, it can only get more valuable with time (I think), and I’m sure the right buyer would have paid several times more than what I got for it. Granted I got the memento itself for ~100g so it was still a good deal, but I still feel like I could have gotten even more.

What are your future plans with WoW?

WoW is both a blessing and a curse. It’s definitely the most entertaining MMORPG I’ve ever played, and I don’t think anything will ever come close to what WoW was to me at its peak. Lately though I’ve realized it’s probably better for my own development as a person to play less, not more WoW, as there are simply better and more productive things to do with my time. Like I said earlier my subscription ends in a few weeks and currently I’m still debating whether or not to re-sub. It’s likely I’ll take a break until patch 4.3 at least, which I think will be in two months or so.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

I’m sure demand for all end-game item enhancements will spike with patch 4.3, as it does with pretty much all patches. Jewelcrafting and alchemy will become even more profitable than they are now with the release of epic gems, but demand for rare gems will stay high as epic gems will be hard to get. I also think Blizzard will release more BoE pets in the future i.e. legal gold selling, as of yet though this has had little to no impact on my server. Also, I feel like previous gold milestones are becoming less and less impressive as time goes on. Maybe it’s because quests simply give more gold now than before.

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

Thank you for having me today. My last words of advice are to never buy gold. I don’t suggest buying gold guides either – I went from no knowledge to where I am now, through my own hard work and research, and anyone can do the same. If though, you feel compelled to spend money, gold guides are definitely the way to go. Some are quite good (or so I’ve heard) and like the saying goes, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”