Hall of Fame – 2 Million Gold Club: Vile of Skullcrusher-EU

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, Vile of Skullcrusher-EU, who will be sharing their story with us today.

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

Hey everybody I’m Vile from Skullcrusher-EU server and the author of vilesauctions.blogspot.com, a blog about making gold. I’m an individual that enjoys playing games in general, but more importantly loves playing games that have working economies in them. I started out playing games way back in 1997-98 I think when I bought my first PC, that is for the PC era of gaming, but for gaming in general I would say much earlier in the days of the Commodore 64 and the arcades. I just want to add that to this day I am still amazed at how games could have been played off a cassette, but hey it happened. So thinking back at it all now, I can say with confidence that I’ve grown up with games, and that might explain why I love them so much.

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

Well I have been playing the game since the very start. In this period I have pretty much tried it all. I will start from back in the Vanilla WoW time. I used to be a part of a PvP group called PoP ( Parade Of Pwnage), that was a dedicated group that used to chain run AB’s and totally own anyone we came against. After that would be done, we would jump in and do our raids. The raiding urge lasted the most, so basically from the first raids in UBRS, then ZG, then AQ and so on and on through TBC and WOTLK. I stopped raiding when Cataclysm shipped, and that is when I got ONLY in the AH PvP game. That is what has proven to be most fun for me and been my sole motivator to play the game.

What motivated you to collect this amount of gold?

Well what was my motivator? Hmm the answer to that question would not be easy to define, but I will try. For the longest period of time I played the game with my friends, battling it out in the PvP battlegrounds as well as the raids. Now one of the things that I would have to say were the main motivators would be that I loved to do that. Now the correlation of playing with your friends, and then that being your motivator for making gold is simple actually, the guild we got into. This guild I am talking about was a server first guild, that was always pushing for a kill and always requiring it’s members to have the latest gems, flasks and food. All this meant was that they needed gold to make it to the guild raid runs, and as the luck would have it they sucked in the gold making department, so that was put on my plate. While here, I might add that this was one of the main reasons why I decided to level up all the professions so that I can actually make it cheaper to get all the required goodies.

How did you learn to do it?

I would have to say that my starts were in the most unpopular manner that I keep telling everyone to get away from nowadays, and yes I am talking about Farming. So for longest time I used to farm for gold, be it killing mobs for the drops they have or picking herbs as well as mining ore. TBC was the last bastion of the killing mobs for farming because as soon as WOTLK came out there was simply no more mobs worth killing that would yield enough gold to rival the auction house. So you might guess that by this time I had all the professions leveled up, and was making my gold on the second tier of gold making, the manufacturing way. So if I would have to say how I actually did learn to do it, I would have to say that I did it by the good old way of trial and error.

Is there anyone or a resource you would like to thank that contributed to your success?

Well I have always been a person that kind of sucked in the social media department up until lately, so I can’t say that I have had much help from it. But as for sites as well as blogs I can say that I have gotten some ideas as well as massive amounts of entertainment, while reading or listening to them. I would like to link a few of them here because they are still active and still have awesome tips and ideas.

http://coldsgoldfactory.blogspot.com

http://altosgoldishadvise.blogspot.com

http://kujasgoldmine.blogspot.com

There are more but these were couple of the best ones I came upon that are still active and still are true to their readers.

What were some of your early mistakes? How would you do things differently if you had to go back and redo them?

Well I think I have already said what my earliest mistake was, farming. If I would be able to go back in time I would most definitely… well I would still farm, because I still believe  that we all learn from our mistakes, so if I never learned from my mistakes, who knows I might have still be farming ore and herbs today.

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

This is a very funny question, because I must say that getting to this amount boils down to two things, persistency and originality. Just so everyone is clear on one thing, when you see or hear about someone that has a million gold, or two or heck even five or more million gold know just one thing, he is probably using a few tricks but he is good at those tricks and he has been doing it for a very long time. Ok now since we got this out of the way I can go ahead and tell you what has been working for me and what hasn’t.

Profession wise I have already stated I have every single one, but unlike everyone I tend to try out a market and then if it gets too easy, or if I dominate a market I don’t stay in it for too long, but instead I get one of my friends to get in on that market and use my tactics for their own profits. I have done this with so many things that I can’t even remember them all. But all this aside I didn’t get to shoot past two and a half million gold without being constantly in a single market, and that market for me has been gems.

As I have explained in a few posts on my blog, the reason as to why I was good at what I did was simply because I had the motivation for it, I had the time to do it and I befriended the competition and made sure we all acted in sync, almost as a syndicate. With that done we had the server prices tailored to our needs, where prices of raw gems were high as well as the prices of cut gems because we made sure to control the market as best as we could. What this meant was on certain days we would end up buying 1000+ stacks of ore, but with prices of gems of over 200g it was a very profitable arrangement.

One other market that I have been into for quite a while is the crafting PvP items market. I like this market because of one thing only, with every patch they make the crafted items better or more in line with the current PvP gear so that makes that market always viable.

Another market that I used to be very active, but decided to leave it is the Inscription market. Well this is not correct because I have only left the glyph market while all the other goodies that profession has to offer, I keep using. What I mean here is the Mysterious Fortune Cards, and yes they have made me a true fortune in their time, as well as their Cookie counterpart.

I could go on and on about what to sell but I have that covered on my blog, so while here I can only give you one advice that I think is the most valuable, Advertise. Yup you heard it right, advertising has been one of my best weapons that I have been using in the AH PvP. The best thing about this is that advertisement works with any profession, heck it even works great if you are selling ore or herbs. And don’t forget the best part is that advertisement is free in WoW, and all you have to do go to a major city and enter the trade channel. Just so you get the basic idea of how this whole thing work. If you are selling product A, you go on the trade channel and simply say that your Product A will make you better, stronger and more awesome in any way possible, and you will shortly see that people start buying your given produce. Just don’t do it with these words, but more of a cheesy hamburger commercial way.

What is your master list?

Hmm if I would have to name items I constantly sell that would be a list that is always changing as I am jumping from a market to market. But I guess I can name the constant sellers that I have had in my experience. I will put gems as one thing, there really is no need to get into details which ones sell the best. Another thing that has been working for me for two expansions now is the blacksmith enchanting rods market, as I have been getting a constant stream of income from that.

What items are on your shopping list?

I am always on the look for raw materials that I use in my crafting, things like ore, herbs, cloth and leather. So pretty much always keeping my eyes open for good opportunities, and cheap items. One other thing that I always keep an eye out is the WOTLK level gems, the rare ones and the epic ones, as those are one of the markets that I stuck into even when Cataclysm came out.

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

Oh I have always been an addon buff. I have addons for almost anything, UI, bars, cooldowns, raiding, pvping and of course the auction house. With the amount of addons out there that cover pretty much everything, in the department of the auction house I’m using what any good informed player is using. In that bundle of joy I have Auctionator, Auctioneer and for my posting and checking I’m using TSM. I  know there are some people out there that have never heard of TSM, so if you happen to be one of those people and you are reading this, go download it and then take some half an hour to familiarize yourself with the addon as that will save you a ton of time in the long haul.

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

Hmm, well to be honest when I got the 1 million I felt like I should push for more, then when I got to 2 million I still felt like it’s not enough so I kept pushing on. So I thought about what should I make the next threshold, so I put it up at 10 million. I made up my mind for that number because that is the “hard cap” because you can’t have more than then split on 10 characters. As it is now I have an easy percentage based progress bar that is easy to follow, and I am still at 26% now so I have a lot of way to go to my “sweet spot”.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

This is a funny story as well. As I told you I used to be a part of a server first guild and only the people inside the guild knew about how much gold I had because I would “lend” people gold, and by lend I mean give. But as time went on and on the guild kind of fell apart as people left for whatever reasons and the people that stayed they moved on to other guilds. Now it’s a given fact that people talk, so in a very short time my amount of gold got to be well known amongst people and I started getting whispers from people I never knew asking me about an investments they did, and asking me if it is a good one. Then after the question about investments came questions about how to do things that were profitable, which eventually led to me making my gold making blog.

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

I have told this to many of the people I know, I am a good earner but a crappy spender. It’s true that I have bought the Mechano-Hog mount, as well as the repair mammoth, but other than that I haven’t had any spending excesses. But on the other hand I have given loads of gold to friends, guildies and even random people that were just starting out. As for things I want to buy, well this is a joke that I’ve told many of the people that have asked me why I’m gathering all this gold, and I tell them that when I get 10 million gold I am going to contact Blizzard and ask that they let me buy a raid, and some day people will come over trying to kill me and when they do I shall throw gold at them.

But jokes aside, I would love for new and exciting gold sinks in the game. I have even had a few civil discussions up on the forums with people about it. If you ask me I think that Blizzard needs to bring in more then one gold sink to draw some gold away from the economy because if something doesn’t change and gold gets deflated I’m afraid the economy might crumble.

Few of the ideas I have heard going around as far as gold sinks go have been:

Ability for spectators to bet on arena teams as to who wins.

Introduction of Gambling Dens in WoW

Make more dailies like the one back in Sunwell days where you had to pay gold as a donation to help the families of the fallen heroes, or something like that.

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

HIT THEM BOOKS PEOPLE ! … max out your professions and then simply dominate the market !

How about an advanced gold making class?

As for an advanced class I could only tell people to do one thing, branch out. What I mean by this is, you should never keep all your eggs in one basket, or to make it even simpler, go into multiple markets because if one of them crashes you have others to keep you afloat. Also it would be a good idea to get on Twitter and dig around who are the people worth following that are spewing awesome tips on a daily basis be it for crafting, auctions, transmogrifications or anything for that matter.

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.

Well I am going to go out and say it, I suck as a farmer per se but sometimes I can actually go out and do some farming when I am waiting for a queue, or I’m simply bored. One of my favorite spots for farming would be the trogs, or whatever they are, that are found in Deepholm fighting the dwarves.

But if I am not in the fighting mood then I would probably just hop on the druid and go for some Hearthblossom farming in Deepholm, so there it is two of my favorite spots are in Deepholm.

What are your future plans with WoW?

Well we never know what the future brings, but one thing is for certain as long as I have my friends up for playing PvP or do some instances I will keep playing the game, and have fun while doing it all.

What are you predictions for the future WoW economy?

Well this is another tricky question. I have said it multiple times that something needs to be done before inflation eats up the worth of the gold. I am a Diablo franchise fan as well as a WoW player and I am just hoping that I will never have to see that scenario where gold is worthless ever again. With the preliminary information about the decrease of the item level of items I am kind of hoping that Blizzard will address the issue where we have too much gold, and tone down the income for quite a bit. Just so I’m clear on what I mean, I hope that Blizzard tones down the income to that line where this is not the 2 million club but a rather 200k club,

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 actually in real life I’m pretty much like I am in WoW. NO that doesn’t mean that I go out and kill animals and dragons, no, what I mean is that in real life I do my job with a determination and persistence just as I am making my gold in WoW.

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

I used to be very dedicated to playing the game and just the game, so no music, no movies no nothing. That is when I found the awesome aspect of the internet called Podcasts. I did a bit of reading and now I can’t wait till I get my weekly podcasts released so I can listen to them while I am making my gold, or even working my real life job. For the Podcasts that I follow I would have to say it’s Rep Grind Radio which is slowly becoming my top recommendation, then The Chaos Stream as well as few more but I won’t get into more details about them here now .

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 am going to playing Diablo 3, well actually let me give you an example of how much exactly. I lost a year at college because of Diablo 2, but even if that does sound bad I say it was good times. As for Diablo 3 I had the chance of trying out a bit of the beta, a whole 7 minutes of it before I deleted it from my PC. Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t delete it because I didn’t like it, heck I loved it, but I deleted it because I didn’t want any sneak peaks into the game that I believe is going to be the game of the decade. And as for the RMAH, I am going to rock it for all it’s worth and use my experience I got from playing Diablo 2 and WoW to actually make some RL cash.

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

I would just like to thank the readers as well as the Warcraft Econ for giving me the opportunity to share out my WoW life.