The Daily Grind: Hodir

Dailies are a great, quick way to make gold. Sure, they're repetitive, boring, and sometimes result in pvp, but you're generating gold without needing to make an auction. While doing your dailies, you can sometimes get world drop epics (I've gotten four that I can recall), and plenty of greens to DE and vendor trash to convert to gold.

The first daily quest hub I'm taking a look at is The Sons of Hodir. The Sons of Hodir are the faction from which you can purchase pve oriented Shoulder Inscriptions. Once upon a time, these were BoP, and every character leveled needed their own faction reputation with Hodir to enable them to glyph their shoulders - unless of course, they were an inscriptionist.

Nowadays, since Hodir's glyphs were changed to BoA and everyone only needs one character with reputation, as well as the availability of rep tokens from heroic badges, Hodir's valley is often a virtual ghost town. This means less competition for the daily mobs, more discoveries of Everfrost Chips, and a quick, often painless place to visit to make some quick gold.

Once you are exalted with Hodir, you will have access to:

1: Blowing Hodir's Horn  (13g 23s)
2: Feeding Arngrim (13g 23s0)
3: Hot and Cold (13g 23s)
4: Polishing the Helm (13g 23s)
5: Spy Hunter (13g 23s)
6:Thrusting Hodir's Spear (16g 53s)

This is a total gold value of 82g 68s plus loot from mobs. Quick and easy. 

However, the chain to unlock Hodir is a long, arduous journey. The upside to this is that it becomes available at level 77, and provides delicious XP. At level 80, the chain itself is an excellent source of gold, leading to a source for gold!


It all begins in K3 with Gretchen Fizzlespark's They Took Our Men! The rest of that chain is as follows:


1.They Took Our Men!
2.Leave No Goblin Behind
3.The Crone's Bargain
4.Mildred the Cruel
5.Discipline
6.Examples to be Made
7.A Certain Prisoner
8.A Change of Scenery
9.Is That Your Goblin?
10.The Hyldsmeet 
11.Taking on All Challengers
12.You'll Need a Bear
13.Going Bearback
14.Cold Hearted
15.Deemed Worthy
16.Making a Harness
17. The Last of Her Kind
18. The Warm-Up
19. Into the Pit
20 Prepare for Glory
21 Lok'lira's Parting Gift
22. The Drakkensryd
23. Sibling Rivalry
24. Mending Fences

25. The Refiner's Fire
26. A Spark of Hope

At this point you should be neutral with Sons of Hodir, and able to begin the rep grind to unlock all of the dailies. Don't forget the Everfrost and Commendation Badges!

Getting Started

We all have to start somewhere, but if you're like me, you feel that you need a strong foundation to start on. Since I'm still getting my act together in the auctioning department, I think now is a good time to document the steps I've taken.

While I'm still getting into the auctioning aspect of things, I've been earning gold for a while. I believe it started back in Burning Crusade, when I realized that doing dailies on multiple 70's was a good thing. I got into the habit of doing a set pattern of dailies. This made them more predictable, if not more entertaining. Lately, I do dailies on only my main, though I keep kicking myself for it. I have unlocked pretty much all of Icecrown and use that for my basis of doing dailies.

This progressed into farming old-world instances on my protection paladin once she was the proud owner of a vendor mount.

I have now begun to farm and purchase materials off the auction house to use my professions for money in addition to all of the above.

I imagine I'll be taking additional steps in the future, but for the current time, this is the point I'm at.

Gold Total Update: 47,916g 77s 20c
Total profits since May 20th: 9,669g

Auction House PvP

This marks day two of my latest insanity, and so far, the payoff is already noticeable. After dedicating about three hours to studying glyphs, I made my first move into the glyph market on my main server, and the results have been surprising. I'm refining the list I initially drew up based on sales - those that sell, I'm posting three more and judging their performance after that point. The ones that don't sell, I'll be re-posting and keeping an eye on. I will not make more of the glyph until I am sold out, at this point, to avoid overstocking what turns out to be an unpopular choice.

I have by now come to recognize yet another auctioneer on my server by their name, and am now engaging in Auction House PvP with them as we speak ;D (I wish I could remember which blog I read that on first - I do agree that the Auction House is yet another form of PvP). So far, we've elbowed each other back and forth  in the Blacksmithing markets and such, and I'm curious if he's simply re-posting unsold merchandise or crafting more and undercutting. The action has been particularly drastic, ranging between 50 to 25 gold undercutting on his behalf. I always reply with a much less drastic cut in price when undercutting him, to try and teach by example. So far, in my opinion, I find it better to undercut by coppers, and no more than a couple gold. This will make you the better price, and put you at the top of the list, but won't cut into your profits too harshly, especially if someone like my new dear friend comes along and starts throwing the undercutting around like it was going out of style.

Part of me wonders if he's attempting to elbow me clear out of the market by making me unable to get the sales I'm after due to his erratic pricing behaviors, but I also wonder if his intent is irrelevant as long as I don't give up and keep perusing the dream. Well, that sounded corny.

But that's what it is. A dream, a desire, a goal. It's a good thing to have, especially while facing the End of the XPac Woes. I want to head into Cataclysm with a strong financial start, and I want to keep going strong throughout the next expansion.

Gold feels like a high score to me. They're points to acquire and later spend on rewards. The higher the score, the better the potential rewards, as well as the better the position for helping others.

But, what's the best approach to Auction House PvP? This feels like another thing I'll be learning on the quest for the gold cap. Any thoughts or pointers on the subject will be appreciated. :) 

For those who are curious, here's the most recent standings for my main server:

 

Abbreviated Screenshot.

It wasn't a phenomenal day, but considering that was made dipping into unfamiliar markets with little else, I'm happy with it.

Adventures in Auction Housing, or, 'I Want To Reach the Gold Cap Too!'.

Like many of WoW's players, I like gold. I like it a lot. I enjoy looting the bad guys and hearing the money hitting my bags, and I really like watching my MoneyFu's session gains getting higher when I play. I hate seeing my sessions at a loss, and do what I can to invest my gold wisely.

I feel I have a few advantages on my side in the quest for making gold.

First, I have two accounts, so I can easily handle any cross faction auction housing myself. This also makes farming a breeze, as I can farm on whatever toon I desire, and have an easy disenchant option. I can also make my own raid groups on a whim without relying on outside help. If I'm farming far away from town, I can bring my second toon and empty my farming character's bags into theirs, if I lack a Moll-E, giving me a greater up-time on any farming binges I feel like going on. My paladin tank has the vendor mount and does much of my old world dungeon and raid farming.

Second, I have seven level 80 characters, six of which are on my main server. In addition to this, I have two characters in their 70's, and a character at 58. All of the above are Horde, however.

Third, I have every single profession in the game at Northrend level. But, I really need to settle down and max out some of the more boring ones, such as Leatherworking and Inscription. I also need to specialize my second alchemist into flasks, and level alchemy on a third character to take up transmutes mastery. 

I have decided that I want to utilize my resources and achieve the gold cap. Before, my goal was simply to stockpile 50,000 gold for Cataclysm's release, but after having come across such awesome blogs as Just My Two Copper, which was the first I stumbled upon, my goals have changed a bit. Seeing others' stories of success has fueled my fire, so to speak.

However, despite everything in my favor, I have issues with gold flow that I know I need to address. For one, I am a very giving person. When I was planning on having an active 5v5 with some friends, I purchased every single member of the team a Battered Hilt, at prices ranging from 6K for the cheapest and peaking at 11K for the first couple. While the 5v5 team idea eventually fell through, I don't regret giving the gifts I did, as I know those who still play are still benefiting from them. However, it is an example of my biggest enemy: random impulse.

I am an impulse shopper, and this is reflected with my IRL money management as well as my WoW gold. It has lead me to make a handful of poor investment choices, thankfully in the WoW world, rather than the real one! But if I hope to achieve the gold cap, I'm going to need to cut back on lavish gifts (which depreciate in value as time goes on anyways). Not to say I should stop gifting entirely, but I should do it less frequently.

A second thing standing in my way is that I feel easily pushed around in the market. I don't have all of the know-how just yet for what I hope to achieve, I don't think. I'm hoping that the experience I gain working with the markets will help me overcome this in time.

If all goes well, I should be reporting my progress here every so often. :D

As of today, May 20th, 2010, I have:

Total across toons on this realm.

The last seven days of activity.