Friday 1 June 2012

A little knowledge can be dangerous


So let me set the scene. Ore is normally 60-70g/stack. Then we get a deluge of cheap ore at 20g/stack. Combine this with an inexperienced JC (that happened to be a guildie) who wanted to get rich quick.

A guildie advertised in trade and guild chat how he wanted to sell Inferno rubies for 30g each. Now I bought them all because cut infernos are still selling for 100-110g and hey who doesn’t like free gold?

This guy kept talking about his ore adventure and it was fascinating to hear his tale. For example he was vendoring all his uncommon gems because he had read about it somewhere out there on the interwebz but realised that he was not making a lot of gold doing this.

One can expect that following a big amount of cheap ore coming into the market prices may start to come down but watching this player’s adventure was very very interesting. I intervened with the inferno rubies but decided it would be fun to try and get into the mindset of someone new to making gold. So I did not intervene again even when Nightstone were being vendored *wipes tear from eye*

A day passed and this player was still talking about how they were stuck with loads of gems that would not sell. He only has JC/Alchemy and no alts as far as I can tell.

Now when I read in gchat this player had made 9k in two days I was intrigued. I was glad this player managed to make some decent gold however when I asked how much they spent on ore they replied 7k!

So basically he spent 7k on 7000 ore (350 stacks), prospected it all and only made 2k profit? I was just like Wow. With a 7k investment he should have easily been able to make 15k+ back even just doing a basic shuffle and selling raw gems.

The thing is this player panicked. He had so much ore and just wanted to get rid of it. Even though perhaps to me and others he should have calmed down, kept prices a little higher, not vendored gems and basically chilled out and sold his items over a week rather than a couple of days. When you invest nearly all the gold you have into a market you panic it is just normal I guess. If I invested all my gold into something I might panic as well.

So what can we learn from this inexperienced JC? While it can be hugely helpful to look back at  older blog posts and listen to older podcasts please remember to check things still work out and engage your brain. This player was 110% confident you could buy elementium ore and make a profit just from vendoring the uncommon gems.

You might ask why I did not intervene and help this player, well  I think I wanted them to go through the experience and maybe they would learn and develop.

Would you have intervened?

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8 comments:

  1. Hmm that's a tough one! I've had a few guildies do similar things & other more experienced guildies tell them to listen to me for advice as I know what I'm doing (Hah! little do they know! lol)

    I've also spent ages helping some younger guildies, trying to explain the whole shuffle thing but they often say 'but that takes so much time!' & go back to what they were doing.

    So I guess I may have tried to have a quiet word but I've learnt that advice can be given til you're blue in the face but they don't have to take it & very often, they just don't want to listen anyway. I usually point them to my blog roll & tell them to have a read of the more recent posts & let them get on with it.

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  2. This reminds me of the time @marthapie advised me to sell exalted legs for 3k knowing they could've sold for more. She'll deny it, but it's true!

    So my response to your question is....

    Tough love! Gotta learn the hard way.

    Pai if you read this <3 <3 <3.

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  3. I wish I could live in a reality where the shuffle was so damn profitable. This guy is living the dream!

    Anyway I would have told him, personally. These kind of things are constantly changing, and I know how hard it is to find up to date information on WoW (ie on a class, etc) after new patches come out and things change. I probably wouldn't use an over a year old article in the first place, but to each his own.

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  4. I would certainly intervene :)

    Everyone that writes a gold blog can be thought of as intervening... but in a super, super subtle way. Intervening directly is going out on a limb, but there are many of us that are more than happy to do it. We love to talk about gold and we love to help people, so I think it's our natural reaction.

    When it comes to advice to people I don't know, I just make sure I'm helpful, constructive and non-judgemental. If people are interested, I'll talk to them in more detail. If they aren't I leave it be and move on to the next thing. Unsolicited advice is unsolicited, but still can be appreciated if can help the other person.

    My challenge at the moment is offering advice in the mumble vs. vent debate. It is completely different because I *want* something from these people, and that is... install mumble so you can join in my event (e.g., Ulduar 25 drake runs). I've realised that the mumble is better than vent debate is pointless. Mumble is better than Vent in every way. Cost, quality, latency. The only downside is that people already have vent and they have to install mumble... it requires time and some potential problem solving.

    So wish me luck as I develop strategies to "help" people grab mumble for our event next week :)

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  5. I was a bit confused by your post until I realized that you refer to one person (or character) as "they." Back in the day, "they" referred to two or more people. I don't want to be a grammar Nazi, but whenever I have to go back and read something twice because conventional usage has been subverted, I get a bit annoyed at the writer.

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    1. Thanks i edited the post i think is was trying to turn he or she into "they" so i edited it just to he or this player.

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  6. I would have intervened as far as offering him vendor price or a bit more for the gems he was going to vendor. That should have clued him in that the gems are more valuable than vendor fodder. It could then open the door to advising him on what more he could do if he was interested, or it would add to my own personal wealth.

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  7. Not sure about the whole intervening thing, developing a effective gold making prodigy takes considerable time and subtle hints that lead them to discover what works... A couple guildies of mine are at various points in the process, but in every case it's taken months or more to get what seems almost like small progress.

    On a side note, I've been participating in a gold making contest on a non familiar server, and even though I have considerable gold making experience, know my primary markets pretty much inside out, and have no problems working the AH. I was still tentative to invest my small stash of gold when i first started. We sometimes forget what it looks like from the bottom up, when we sit on mountains of gold.

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