Hall of Fame – 1 Million Gold Cap Club: Navanya of US-Malfurion

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, Ermorden of Scarlet Crusade-US, who will be sharing their story with us today.

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

It’s hard for me to pick a “main” but if I did it would be my disc priest Navanya , US-Malfurion.  I’m 31 years old, married to the most awesome man in the world and am a stay at home wife.  I started playing WoW in 2006 because I knew some people at the time that played it, I had honestly never played an MMO before and was never that interested in most video games – but something with WoW just clicked, and I was off to the races on my little gnome mage, I loved it – I loved everything about it.  During BC I joined my first raiding guild, via that guild “Vanguards of Azeroth on Sargeras – US” I actually met my husband!  So even beyond the pure entertainment that Blizzard has given me over the years I’m eternally grateful to them because I would never have met my husband otherwise (we lived like 1800 miles apart!) Currently, we have our own private guild which houses are army of alts and we really enjoy doing old content together, doing 5mans and now we LFR together! When I’m not busy in the World of Warcraft I take care of our two dogs, spend time with my friends, read, and dabble in photo and video editing which has been a hobby of mine for awhile.

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

I have so many characters that I honestly do a little bit of everything. I love leveling new characters but I do have four healers that are pure PVE, I do instances and LFR on them currently, during BC and Wrath I raided on them pretty heavily.  I PVP occasionally on my mage and sometimes on my rogue, but I do think my gaming tends to lean more towards the PVE aspects of the game.  I also spend a lot of time doing old reps, raids, and just generally exploring every facet of the game.

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

I never really was into the gold game until towards the end of BC, a guildie of mine had a decent amount of gold and I noticed how they never really struggled to pay for repairs or to purchase fun things for their character.  So towards the end of BC I started coming up with goals, my initial goal was to reach 50k by the time Wrath came out, I ended up blowing that completely out of the water by about 75k more reaching about 125k total.  I started realizing that I was actually pretty decent at making gold so I started researching gold-making blogs to see how others did it and how I could improve my gold game.  When ICC came around in WOTLK there was a really well done popular GDKP run on my server at the time (Sargeras), I liked having gold to buy the items I wanted and ended up making a decent amount of gold from those runs as well. However after that for me it became more of a self-challenge rather than “Oh I need gold to buy things”, I wanted to do it just to prove that I could. I wanted to prove that it was possible for me to make gold on my terms, using what I had learned from other people but doing it in my own time frame and having fun with it.

Anyone or resource you would like to thank?

The Consortium- I have only posted a few times but I’m a constant lurker! Kuja’s Gold Mine – I really love that website! The Undermine Journal – such an awesome resource! Also, of course my husband (Terros-Malfurion US) he’s been awesome about being my own personal tank in old world content and for making the time I spend in game even better!

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

Alts – I am an altoholic.  I have 13 characters on my server not all of them are capped, but they all serve a purpose. I discovered as I was leveling characters that you actually make a decent amount of gold just from the leveling process and items you pick up along the way.  Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that every person out there needs to level a bunch of characters to make gold, I did it mainly because I enjoy the leveling process but I did find that when it came to gold making it really made it easier because it leads directly to the next part – plethora of professions!

Professions – I have every profession, some I have multiples of (herbalism, mining, inscription and alchemy).  Number one thing is if you have every profession you are self sufficient, I don’t have to buy gems on the auction house for my characters because I can prospect them, transmute them and cut them myself.  You save a lot of gold this way. Number two by having access to all the professions you can use them to build off of each other, i.e. the Obsidium/Elementium shuffle (I use both kinds of ore depending on cost), I can prospect the ore on my JC, I can take some of the gems and make jewelry, I can DE that jewelry on my enchanter and use that dust/essences for scrolls, I can take the other gems and transmute them on my alchemist, then going back to my JC I can cut gems.

I use my scribe mainly for new glyphs that show up in patches, mysterious fortune cards, dust of disappearance and the ritual of the new moon offhands – for the most part I stay away from the glyph market as it is completely oversaturated on my server.  I use my leatherworker for leg armors and for making heavy savage leather to get pristine hides.  I use my tailor for bags and for spellthreads, my engineer I use really only for crafting pets and sometimes the scopes.   For my enchanter I tend to make some of the cheaper mat enchants from the current content as there seems to be less completion on these items but they still sell at a regular pace. I do try to keep an eye out on old world enchants and sell those if I feel the time is right (i.e. when goblins and worgen came out enchants for BoA gear became nice sellers again).

Farming – I know it’s not very popular on a lot of gold blogs, but I farm not because I feel like I have to but because sometimes I just want to, sometimes it’s nice to just turn on some music and zoom around some zone looking for materials, you never know what else you might find out there.  Often while waiting for a dungeon queues instead of sitting in Stormwind I can make a couple rings around Uldum for herbs, or sometimes I just feel like flying around looking for a rare spawn or something and farming is something to do in the meantime.  I will of course buy raw materials off the AH when they are a good price or when I need to restock, but I also will use my gathering professions to gather some of those raw materials.

Time – You aren’t going to go from having two gold to one million gold overnight, it takes time and patience especially if you are trying to sell a rarer item that has a much smaller buyer pool, and I think a lot of people get frustrated with relisting stuff I tend to see it as just part of the gold game.  Also, time in the way that I probably have more time to invest in this game then someone with a full-time job, I feel that I am lucky in that way.  When my husband is at work I take care of my house and then I have time to log on to wow if I want, but I also have to be careful that I don’t play too much if I do I tend to burn myself out and then have to walk away from the game for a few weeks.

Old World Items – I have actually made a decent amount of gold via old world items.  I have spent a lot of time in old instances and old raids, partly because I enjoy them, partly because sometimes they are a bit of a challenge with only one or two characters, and partly because I know that there is gold to be had there.  Rare recipes, rep items that people don’t really want to farm for, old gear that people now really want for transmogging, and items for leveling professions such as enchanting mats or leather are all items that I have used to push myself towards my million gold goal.  There are also vendor recipes that people will commonly purchase off of the AH instead of hunting down the particular vendor that sells it – I find these to be especially true for items from Outland.  I will typically make a route about once a month and stock up on those recipes.  Also with all vendor recipes it’s very important to make sure they haven’t been added to the recipe trainer over the years so always check wowhead first!

Holidays & Patch Days – I tend to stock up throughout the year for different holidays especially winters veil, I really wish I could know the amount of gold I’ve made over the years from small eggs alone! I also know that people like to buy pets come winters veil as they make great gifts so I tend to try to unload a decent amount of them then.  I also pay attention to what’s going on the PTR to know what’s coming down the line for the next big patch – doing this can really help you prep properly for when patch does go live.  I stockpile not as much as some I’ve seen but I try to have a decent amount. Also, I think some people make the mistake of blowing all their stock on the day that the patch goes live, I tend to put only about 25% of my stock up that day then I wait a few days and wait for a lot of people to empty their stock and then come in with probably another 25% of my stock then I somewhat let the rest of my stock trickle in – this of course may not work for everyone but it is what has worked for me.  I find two weeks after a patch people are still getting gear they need to enchant and gem but the competition on the AH to sell those items is much lower so my items tend to sell for a higher amount and they tend to sell faster.

AH Deals & Knowing the market – Every few days I will comb through the AH looking for deals, items that are selling for less than vendor, items that have really low bid prices, items that have buyouts that are much cheaper than what I know they will sell for. If I see something that I know I can make money on I bid on it or buy it – but you have to know the markets, when I first started I made some mistakes that were somewhat costly about thinking I knew what would sell and what wouldn’t sell now I feel much more comfortable in my market knowledge.  I also look at an item not just for what it will sell for but also for “what can I do with this”, such as herbs I might find a bunch of cheap herbs on the AH so I snatch them all up now I have to decide is it more profit to flip them or to mill them and sell the ink or sell the glyphs that can be made with the ink (thankfully I have addons that help me with all that math!) I also tend to go on a bidding spree before servers go down for regular Tuesday maintenance.  I truly believe that in a certain way this has helped me nickel and dime my way to a million gold, if I can make a profit off of selling it I do.

Be knowledgeable and friendly – Because I know the market and stuff that might be coming on the horizon via the PTR, when I’m sitting in trade and I see people ask questions I try to answer them, I try to be courteous and help them out.  If I did the opposite people probably aren’t going to buy my auctions, why save only one copper to give money to a jerk.  Perhaps, it doesn’t help as much as I like to believe it does but it also doesn’t hurt.  I remember when I was leveling my first toon I wouldn’t buy from people who spammed trade with stupid stuff or were rude to people in trade.

Quantities matter – The more familiar you get with gold making the more you will realize what quantities are going to sell.  Not everything is best in stacks of 20 and not everything is best in stacks of one.  For example, I always check what the jewelcrafting daily is and I will list those gems not only in stacks of 3 but also some single ones as well as there are always players who might have two already and only need one more.  If I sell ore I will sell some in stacks of 20 but some in stacks of 5 for leveling jewelcrafters, same with herbs for scribes.  I have found that if you are throwing up a lot of something sometimes it can be good to put up a variety of stacks and observe what sells faster for future reference.

What is your master list?

In one way it’s hard to come up with a “master list” as I pretty much sell everything that I can squeeze some profit out of, however here lately I have found these items to be performing well:

• Inferno Ruby Cuts – Brilliant, Bold, Delicate
• All other gem cuts
• Spellthreads
• Leg Armors
• Enchants – most of my enchanting gold comes from Enchant Chest – Mighty Stats, Enchant Gloves – Mastery, and Enchant Gloves – Haste.  However, I do post others depending on my mat situation.
• Belt Buckles
• Engineering Pets – This is one area that I found to be much more profitable than I ever expected, Lifelike mechanical toad and the mechanical yeti tend to be my biggest sellers.
• Rituals of the New Moon – I try to sell these on a pretty regular basis, they go for about 350g each on my server

What items are in your Snatch list?

Raw mats for engineering pets & Ore.  However, I will constantly be on the lookout for any other good deals!

How did you learn to do it?

Trial and error, lots of research, and time.  I have a very long blog roll that I read on a daily basis, so I bow down to them! If I had a slow week I had to allow myself to not get frustrated and tell myself that I would do better next week.  If I had too much stuff going on in real life, I had to learn to be fine walking away from the game for awhile, realizing that the game itself and the ability to make gold will still be there when I get back.

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

I use Auctionator, Ackis Recipe List, Altoholic, Auditor, LilSparky’s Workshop, MySales, and Postal.  I use a lot of addons but those are the only ones I can think of that somehow relate to the gold game at all.

Auctionator – I like the way its set-up and in my opinion it’s easier to use that Auctioneer it also tends (in my experience) to break less on patch day.

Ackis Recipe List – Awesome for knowing if there are still recipes out there I need to get for any of my professions and where I can get them at!

Altoholic – Best addon ever for keeping track of everything regarding an army of alts!

Auditor – Simple addon that shows me all my gold across all my toons

LilSparky’s Workshop – My mathematical genius workhorse, does the entire math for my crafting costs and shows me what is profitable currently and what isn’t.

MySales – Keeps track of what I’ve sold in the past month

Postal – without this addon checking my mail would probably give me a nervous breakdown

I have thought about trying TSM (TradeSkillMaster) as I know a lot of people in the gold making community swear by it, I haven’t downloaded it yet simply because I haven’t wanted to devote the time to setting it up.  Also, I am a creature of habit and I somewhat already have my posting habits down.  However, based on what I’ve seen of it and the reviews I’ve read I do recommend it!

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

Honestly, probably not.  My husband and I are planning on having a baby soon and we know that when that happens I’m just not going to have the time to devote to it that I do now.  I do believe though that there comes a point where you have so much gold and are so used to making gold that it’s almost impossible not to continue with a positive stream of income.  So currently the goals are to not go on a spending spree and try to maintain some of my gold making just not to the extent that I have

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

Honestly no, I pretty much keep to myself in game. All the people that I played with regularly were on my old server or have quit the game.

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

Like I said earlier I spent some gold during Wrath on GDKP’s but even then I was always very mindful of what I was spending.  All my characters don’t even have 310% flying because I couldn’t justify the cost!  Now that I have reached my goal though, I want to make a bunch of Mekgineer’s Choopers for some of my toons and some of my husband’s toons.  I also plan on perhaps buying a few of the rarer pets that I’ve wanted for a really long time.

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

I would start out by telling them that “Patience is a virtue”, gold-making requires patience to get the most profit, and it also requires tenacity in sticking to crafting, posting, and reposting.  I would also introduce them to the great blogging community out there, there are so many great resources that we have access to – UTILIZE THEM!!

I would try to cover the importance of having multiple professions and how to use each of those professions in connection with each other to make the most profit.  Also, going over some Addons 101 there are some addons out there that can really make it or break it as far as how easy posting, reposting and maximizing your profit are.

Also, I would go over the importance of finding what works for you.  Just because I enjoy farming or making gold via old world content that isn’t necessarily going to work for them, perhaps they would find that the glyph market is better for them or perhaps they would find that only having two or three professions is really the way to go for them.  You have to find what works for you, it’s a game enjoy what you do in it!

Organization Skills – You need to know what you can make, how much of an item you have, how much it has sold for typically, and where everything is located.  This is especially true if you have a bevy of toons.

How about an advanced gold making class?

I honestly don’t feel that I would be qualified enough for that teaching position.  But, if I were to tell them anything I would tell them to enjoy what they are doing.  I think that there are some people who start to see not just the auction house but WoW itself as a job, it shouldn’t be a job it should be entertainment.  Keep in mind I’m talking about the game not the blogging or the real-life income derived from that, I’m speaking more to the logging in and playing.  If you dread logging on and reposting or crafting or even playing, then you probably shouldn’t log on at least not for awhile!  Life is too short to spend it doing things that make you miserable or unhappy.

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 really enjoy Deepholm for farming ore, it tends to be pretty quiet (at least on my server) you can get either Obsidium or Elementium there and there are some pretty good rares in that area.

I enjoy going to Tol Barad on my mage and fishing – I find it strangely relaxing not to mention profitable.

Outland – When leveling it seems that people try to get into and out of outland as quickly as possible.  Due to this, I find that herbs and ore from there tend to sell well, as does profession recipes that are sold by vendors.  Blizzard also saw fit to put umpteen enchanting rods into that expansion, so I also like getting the mats for that either by farming or on the cheap when I see them and crafting the enchanting rods on my blacksmith – there is typically little competition.

What was the best deal you ever came across?

On the Neutral AH there was an incredibly varied amount of items (ore, herbs, old world rep items, cloth from every expansion, etc) that someone had posted for about the 1/4th  of the price it would actually sell for – I bought it all, spent about 5k and probably made 20k if not more.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

Oh god, I’ve had some strange notions over the years, random “markets” that I decided I was going to own and they never panned out – worst was probably my Azerothian Diamond debacle of 2010 – I bought every single one that was on the AH for about two weeks then decided I would start leaking them back onto the market – yeah because people run into them while leveling the competition never dried up and I was left trying to hack Azerothian Diamonds for like a year.  If nothing else it taught me a lesson about ever trying to own an incredibly stupid and random market!

What are your future plans with WoW?

I plan on continuing to enjoy the game in my own meandering way.  I’m really enjoying the addition of the LFR tool so I hope to continue to utilize that every week.  I’m also really looking forward to leveling in Mists of Pandaria seeing what a Monk healer is going to be like. I also foresee myself spending way too much gold with the fun that is transmogrification.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

I think the LFR tool is really going to up the number of buyers for gems, enchants and leg armors so I think those are going to remain study throughout the rest of this expansion.  It’s incredibly hard to predict what will happen with a new expansion but if they put ilvls on the new gems like they did this expansion I do believe that it won’t hurt to have a bit of stockpile going into the next expansion.

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?

Just like with WoW I’m a saver in real life, I tend to not spend money unless I need to and prefer to save for bigger purchases (i.e. our house that we bought). Unfortunately, it is easier to make large sums of money in game then it is out of game, but still I like to save and refuse to spend frivolously in either game or life.  In real life I would however never really seek out making a million dollars, to me there is no joy in that journey – I live simply with my husband and with my dogs, I share my life with people that I love not with things that you can buy.  There is joy in that for a lot of people and everyone should do what they love in life, but for me that’s not it.

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

I tend to listen to music while online partly because I love it and also because I would get way too distracted trying to watch a movie or TV show.  As far as music it depends on what I’m doing, I love so many different types of music but lately my gold making soundtrack has had a lot of Mumford and Sons, The Smashing Pumpkins, Dresden Dolls, Ani DiFranco and Miranda Lambert on it.

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

Invest in an authenticator they are cheap but the peace of mind they provide is awesome.  I take my account security very seriously so the addition of the authenticator was awesome! Mainly though my last bit of advice would be to have fun with what you are doing; there is no point to any of it if you don’t enjoy it! Also, thank you WarcraftEcon for the opportunity to do this interview and for being one of the WoW blogs I enjoy reading!