Hall of Fame: Laike of Kel’Thuzad-US

Posted by Warcraftecon | November 6, 2009 .

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

I’m Laike (screen name) and I play on Horde side Kel’Thuzad US. I’ve been gaming for as long as I remember. I’m mainly an FPS player, but some how I fell in love with WoW, so 3 and a half years later, I’m still trapped in Azeroth.

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

I raid twice a week for 4 hours a raid with my guild. I used to PVP a lot in battlegrounds, but frankly I’m not a huge fan anymore. I can’t shake the feeling of “I could be playing [FPS of the moment] or something…” when I PVP these days. Plus, I was never a fan on Arena in the first place. Other than that, I get on to do my auctions and that is about it.

Why did you choose to collect this amount of gold?

I started playing around on the AH on an alt server. Then I made about 5000g in 24 hours with literally only a lvl 30 character on the server when the dual spec patch hit live. I was addicted after that. I used to be famous in my old guild during TBC for grinding for gold, especially by fishing for primal water. So when I moved my main to a new server, I changed his leather working and skinning for Inscription/Jewel crafting and decided to make a conscious effort to stop being the butt end of the Chinese farmer (yes, I really am Chinese) jokes and start making gold the lazy way.

How did you go about getting to the 214k? Did you use professions? Auction House arbitrage? Any creative ideas?

I used Inscription by selling glyphs on the AH mainly, I pick up odd inscription and JC jobs on trade, but that’s about it. Nothing fancy or groundbreaking.

How did you learn to do it?

Mostly from experimentation. My main tactics and theories I picked up on my own, but they were definitely refined by reading Warcraft economy blogs.

What addons, if any, do you use to help you make gold?

I used Quickauctions2 for the actual posting and canceling of my auctions, Auctioneer, Lilisparkysworkshop, ATSW, and Altoholic for glyph stocking, and Postal to get everything out of the mail.

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

Yes, but I have slowed down a bit since I hit my goal of earning the gold cap. Mostly because Borderlands was released and I’ve been busy with that. I don’t have a new goal in mind, but I do intend to continue earning gold because I recently adopted two friends who I am sugar mama-ing, so I still gotta make gold and make sure they can play with relative financial freedom.

Do many people know you have this amount of gold?

Only my current guild, some people from my old server, and my WoW playing friends know about my in game income.

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

Definitely, I have a this money is digital and it theoretically could disappear tomorrow with out a trace if Blizzard pulled the plug on the server. So I might as well enjoy it attitude. Plus, there’s A LOT less guilt in spending digital gold than real life money, especially in tough times like right now. I bought a bunch of pets to hit my 75 pet achievement, expensive mounts for myself, friends, and as a give away raffle to my guild. But since I got the pets and the mounts I wanted, I’ve just been giving it to friends who need the money.

Do you have any special tips that you would like to share?

Persistence. It’s probably the most overlooked key to making money. I don’t care what sort of strategy you’ve got up your sleeves, if you don’t have the persistence to see it through, you won’t bring in the big bucks, period. A good house needs a good foundation. I see a lot of people give up too early or get distracted and lose sight of their goal of bringing in big money.

Do you have any fun stories from when you were grinding?

Actually, I do! I used to grind like crazy before I transferred to my new server about six months ago. I was particularly nuts during TBC. On my old server, there was this particularly obnoxious feral druid who had the most annoying habit of camping grind spots and areas for dailies and ambushing people out of the blue. The minute the tables turned on him, he’d run off to the closest cliff, jump, fall out of combat and fly away. I was fishing up primal water one time around in Nagrand before raid one time, and this guy jumped me. It was such great timing because a lot of raiders were logging on and doing raid preps, and EVERYONE on the horde had a bone to pick with this druid. The next thing I knew, half our raiders were swarming the Throne of Elements camping this guy. Vengeance tastes so sweet!

What was the best deal you ever came across?

I wouldn’t call it a deal, but that night when dual spec dropped onto the live servers, and I managed to net 5k in 48 hours with only a level 30ish characters is the one that will always stick out in my mind.

Do you remember any of your worst deals?

On the server I was cutting my teeth, I saw a stack of Arctic Fur for what I thought was really cheap on the AH. Ended up the arctic fur market crashed the next day. I left the server before Arctic Fur ever bounced back so I gave the stack to a friend.

What are your future plans with WoW?

I intend to continue with the AH and hopefully finish off H-ToC with my guild soon.

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

Thanks for doing this blog! I really love what you guys are doing, keep up the great work!