tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89945070976382765712024-03-05T01:19:49.858-05:00WoW BankstaA quick gold-making tip every day!Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-80765469638119884322011-03-31T16:10:00.000-04:002011-03-31T16:10:10.082-04:00Posting on Hold for a bitSorry guys, I'm not going to be updating my blog for a couple days. Trying to figure out why Google isn't putting ads on my webpage.<br />
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I know they disabled adsense for me for awhile for whatever reason (they didn't really say), and apparently it hasn't come back up.<br />
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I do also have a job interview tonight so I haven't been putting a lot of thought into the blog recently (in the past couple days). I'm fairly certain the interview is just a formality, as I know the people who are hiring and they know the work I've done so I doubt I"ll have trouble getting the job. It's just a part time thing anyway so no big deal if I don't get it when all's said and done.<br />
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Check back in a couple days, hopefully I'll be back up and running! It also helps when I have a good blogroll to go through to stave off some boredom.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-28623547560992647372011-03-28T13:50:00.001-04:002011-03-28T13:52:19.239-04:00I'm back!Sorry for the absence, I was building a new computer system and holy crap everything that could go wrong did!<br />
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As a quick aside, can anyone see the ads on my blog? For some reason I'm not seeing them, although it may just be Firefox. I have ads enabled and I can view great offers on other peoples' blogs, but for some reason it's not working on mine. <br />
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I got all the pieces together, except for the RAM, since I figured I'd just use the memory from my old computer in the new one. I put it all together, took apart my old computer, and realized I had DDR2 which is incompatible with the new motherboard, I needed DDR3! So, I went on Newegg and checked out their memory, and got a great deal on it. Only problem was, they shipped it DHL and holy crap that took forever for some reason. Literally 7 business days, whereas Newegg usually ships FedEx or UPS and that takes between 1 and 2 business days. So, finally got it all put together and lo and behold, my computer doesn't like the new hard drives. And, the 2nd monitor doesn't work!<br />
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Long story short, after about 16 hours total of screwing around with it, all I needed to do to fix the hard drive issue was to go into the hard drive manager and re-assign it a letter (like C:/ or F:/). Done, 30 seconds. To fix the monitor, I had to move my DVI to VGA adapter (I was too lazy to just hook up the VGA cable) from the bottom port to the top port. For whatever reason, the bottom port on the video card didn't like the adapter. Done, 5 minutes. I raged but what're you going to do.<br />
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Hanging out with an old friend soon, haven't seen him in ages, will report back later/tomorrow!Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-1536044837271246602011-03-16T13:41:00.000-04:002011-03-16T13:41:04.121-04:00Got Up Early Today!Finally, I'm starting to get my sleep cycle back on a more regular track. Unfortunately, whenever I'm out of work or have very little to do, I tend to stay up late and go to sleep late; I would previously be going to bed at around 3-5AM and waking up around 2PM. However, I got to bed at 2AM last night and woke up around 9AM. I'm working this weekend, which will be good, especially since I have a few papers I can do. On the weekends there's very little work to do anyway, but the laboratory still needs to be staffed.<br />
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I'm still waiting on the memory for my computer; I forget if I posted here, but I planned on using my RAM from the computer I have now. It's DDR2 and I need DDR3, so that didn't work. I ordered some last night but it didn't ship today, unfortunately, so I may not have it until next week. Oh well.<br />
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At any rate, I went to the gym with my brother yesterday. If you've never gone with a workout partner before, I highly recommend it. It took a little more time than usual, but it was a lot of fun, more fun than I usually have.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-1760852779965765542011-03-15T15:50:00.000-04:002011-03-15T15:50:59.582-04:00Back from the weddingI probably forgot to mention it, but I had gone away to my friend's wedding. It's really strange, we're the same age and I've known her since Kindergarten, so to see her up on the altar and in her wedding gown was a weird feeling. It must be really nice to be married, I know she found the perfect person, but I doubt I'm going to get married anytime soon!<br />
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I'm hitting up the gym with my brother later; he's in college now but home on Spring Break. Talk about feeling older, it seems like just yesterday he was going into High School. I guess that's the way it is with the flow of time.<br />
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Also, recently, I built a new computer:<br />
Intel i7 970 Hex-core processor<br />
AMD Nvidia 6950 2gb video card (Unlocked to 6970)<br />
8GB DDR3 1600 RAM<br />
64GB SSD (just for Windows and whatever else)<br />
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It's going to be a beast once I get it up and running, but there's been snafus along the way. The first video card I ordered was good, but it was specifically designed for 6 monitors. Sold it on ebay. Bought another video card, but they screwed up and sent me the 1gb version, so I had to return that one. Bought the 3rd video card, and it's the right one! BUT, I had planned to use the RAM from my old computer to save a little bit of money, no such luck. I could have sworn I had DDR3, but it's DDR2 and that's not compatible with the new motherboard. SO, I need to wait another week for the RAM to be delivered! Poor planning on my part, what're you going to do.<br />
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Yes, I know I'm currently unemployed, but I never spent a dime (aside from gas and food) while I was working, so I have a good amount of money saved up. The power of being frugal!Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-35740233104192494252011-03-10T14:23:00.000-05:002011-03-10T14:23:48.862-05:00Harvest Moon, Gym, hanging out with an old buddyRecently I've become re-addicted to Harvest Moon DS. I've been a huge fan of the series since HM64, and Back to Nature was definitely the best (for original PS). Pick up a ROM of it if you can, it's seriously amazing.<br />
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I don't know why, this game sounds boring. You plant crops, you raise animals; milk cows, feed chickens, etc. You interact with the townsfolk, and the only violence is accidentally hitting a cow with your hoe or ax or whatever. But. It's. So. God. Damn. Fun. I guess it's a love it or hate it style game, but I love it.<br />
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Anyway, I stopped playing because it was too easy to exploit, and I'm against the whole "grinding to get an objective" in a game. Yeah yeah I play WoW and I grind there, but that's only to prevent an unfair advantage that I could gain vs other players. In a game that you pay for and own (I prefer to think that Blizz is letting us use their servers and play in their virtual world, we really don't own anything), I think you should be able to experience the story at your own pace. You shouldn't have to spend a couple hours leveling up before you can move on to the next chapter.<br />
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Anyway, I digress. Gym time now, I got my deadlift and incline press day. I'm looking forward to deadlifting again, I think I have my form down. If my back is sore until next week, though, I'm definitely going to have to get some help. I already screwed up my knee, I don't want to screw up my back. Speaking of which, if anyone has a good suggestion for knee tendinitis, please leave it here.<br />
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I'm hanging out with an old friend tonight, haven't seen him in awhile. We'll probably do some Rock Band, which I'm terribad at, but it's still fun. I'm not sure if I'll update tomorrow, but at the very least I'll be back on Monday.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-70915956143099001192011-03-09T14:21:00.000-05:002011-03-09T14:21:33.401-05:00Almost done with schoolIt's really hit me hard lately that in 2 months, I'll be done with school. I've really known nothing else my entire life, and I'm excited to get out into the workforce, but it's just strange.<br />
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It's taken me longer than I expected to; one semester was my fault - bad planning led to no classes being available to take. Another semester was their fault - last semester, I only had 2 classes left and neither were offered by the school.<br />
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It's not like I've never worked; I've had a job pretty much constantly since I was 12 (worked for my mother's office for a year under the table), and now is pretty much the only time where I've been without. It's good and bad, but all this free time gets to your head, I start going to bed at the same time but getting up later, it's bad.<br />
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At any rate, anyone want to give me a job? =D (I don't think I'll have much trouble finding A job once I get out of school. May not be the one I want, but a man's gotta work).Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-48285187928608518882011-03-08T14:10:00.000-05:002011-03-08T14:10:58.556-05:00Ton of Work TodayNo time now for a legit update, may edit later though. I have:<br />
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1.) to hit the gym<br />
2.) grocery shopping<br />
3.) Presentation tomorrow night<br />
4.) weekly paper due Thursday<br />
5.) 2 Term papers to start work on<br />
6.) I'm probably forgetting some things<br />
<br />
I got a job prospect, I'm not sure if I mentioned it here, but I'd be teaching a SAT prep class for Kaplan Tutoring services. The guy called my gf, asking her if she was interested or if anyone she knew was. She directed him to me (currently laid off), and he said he'd like to start me as soon as possible.<br />
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That was 2 weeks ago, haven't heard from him despite 2 e-mails. Why are people so unprofessional? I know the guy personally, why wouldn't he just say, "Hey, about the job, you're not what we're looking for, sorry," instead of keeping my hopes up and blocking me from looking for other prospects for 2 weeks? Life lesson for the day: Be considerate of others.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-10986703440818944492011-03-07T12:45:00.000-05:002011-03-07T12:45:42.751-05:00Some TV Shows You Should Check Out1.) <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303461/">Firefly</a><br />
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I really liked this show, it's just amazing. It's a Space Western Opera, if there even is such a genre. It's about a captain and his crew, and all the ridiculous adventures they get themselves into. It's very intense, especially the last half of the season, and definitely worth the watch.<br />
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It's too bad it got canceled after only one season, but there's a huge fanbase that says it may come back for at least a 2nd.<br />
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2.) <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407362/">Battlestar Galactica</a><br />
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When I heard about this show, I figured, "Great, another Star Trek" and passed it over because, well, I'm not a trekkie. I finally said I'd give it a shot, and I was blown away. I usually multi-task and play WoW on one monitor and watch TV shows or something on the other, but for the first time (I can't just sit and watch TV) in awhile, I had to stop playing WoW and just watch the show. It's that good.<br />
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3.) <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0487831/">The IT Crowd</a><br />
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If you're at all similar to the stereotypical nerd, you'll find this show funny. Roy, Moss and Jen work in the IT department of Reynham Industries in London (yeah it's a British comedy), and they have to deal with all sorts of strange situations. They're on Season 4 but because it's government TV, they only run 6 episodes a season. Worth the watch at any rate.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-27697799312085808542011-03-03T15:25:00.000-05:002011-03-03T15:25:05.426-05:00Just got back from a workout!And only had to travel 10 feet! I lifted at home today!<br />
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Unfortunately, it was only the Press, Bis, Tris, and situps (weighted are on Mondays). My ultimate goal is to have a small home gym where I can do bench, squat, deadlift, and a few other things. Now there's not much time for it, but I have a dinky little weight set with around 130lbs that my aunt gave me a long time ago.<br />
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I was supposed to do deadlifts today, but I noticed my lower back was always sore after deadlifts. It wouldn't be a bad sore, but it would persist for awhile. This leads me to believe I'm doing them with poor form, and that's definitely a bad idea. I need to find out how to check my form and correct that, at least I stopped before I hurt myself.<br />
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At any rate, been working on my hunter in WoW, got him to 77 late last night and I'm hoping to hit 79 today. I have literally all day, haven't heard back from the new job prospect yet, and I just sent out a few resumes. Can only send out so many in a day.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-24832701045118332912011-03-01T12:36:00.000-05:002011-03-01T12:36:04.858-05:00Servers down!Haha played some Borderlands earlier this morning, it was good times. I remember that game being really fun in multiplayer, but not so much in single player. Maybe I'll see if I can convince my friend to play it with me again. I'm starting to move away from WoW, leveling just isn't that fun anymore (duh) and my guild doesn't raid that often - we knock all the content out by Thursday and that's it for the week (and I can't make Wednesdays).<br />
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I'm working on a presentation for my Quality Assurance in the Laboratory class, I'm doing it on a paper on LEAN Laboratories. LEAN is the Toyota efficiency thing, and I'm really interested in efficiency and getting things done well ASAP.<br />
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I'm headed to the gym now, I think this will be my first full week in about 2 months (blizzards, sicknesses, other schedule conflicts), looking forward to it. How's your day going so far?Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-44076139014771363862011-02-28T17:53:00.002-05:002011-02-28T17:53:44.587-05:00Comment Please!This is the first and last post where I'll ask for comments. I just weeded through my following blogroll, and I think I took out too many. I'd appreciate it if anyone who wants me to follow them could comment here, I'll read and support your blog if you do the same for mine!Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-77803046912195475062011-02-28T15:06:00.000-05:002011-02-28T15:06:09.237-05:00A few things to mentionFirst of all, <a href="http://notdoppler.com/rebuild.php">This</a> is an awesome flash game to play. It's fun, addicting, and can take 10 mins or awhile to go through. It's great.<br />
<br />
Anyway, sorry for the delayed response. I was thinking about getting out of blogging. I didn't really like the blogger interface, and I really didn't think I had anything interesting to contribute the past few days or however long it's been. I'm going to try to keep thinking about things and we'll see what happens.<br />
<br />
I'm going to remove everyone from my following list, and start over. Going through I noticed that there were a lot of people on there who haven't updated more than once or twice, and when I'm trying to get to the good stuff I don't want to be trekking through all those blogs that people haven't maintained since day 1. I'm going to rebuild it from there with everyone's blog who has a lot of great info.<br />
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I've been watching a lot of Netflix recently, in my "laid off" period. Sliders became a new favorite show, and I'm liking Firefly. Dead like Me is also a good show if you're looking for a somewhat comedy, somewhat drama show. It only lasted 2 seasons and they had a movie which was okay, but I think it's worth the watch. <br />
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That's all for now, I'll be back tomorrow with something, I'm sure =DSlokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-89477251230555624272011-02-21T06:47:00.000-05:002011-02-21T06:47:56.469-05:00New game!No, not Rift. I heard it was mediocre, like playing Dragon Age: Origins as an MMO. I'm talking about Hack Slash Crawl.<br />
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I've been stuck at work, even though I've been "laid off," for the past 2 days. If you're not a Med Tech, you may not know that there is staggeringly little work to do on weekends; I got literally 20 samples all day yesterday. I average about 100 on a regular weekday, with ease. SO, in lieu of entertainment (other than misc'ing, of course), I picked up this flash game called Hack Slash Crawl.<br />
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You can pick one of like 10 races and 10 classes (roughly, I didn't count). Each has its own specialization. For example, Demons have increased fire resistance and deal extra fire damage with each attack, and Necromancers get "Raise Skeletonx1" and "Raise Skeletonx3." Their functions are pretty much self explanatory. I was partial to the Draconic Necromancer.<br />
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You also acquire equipment which gives stats, and also gives spells. It's a nightmare for min/maxers like me, because even in this tiny flash game I'm thinking of ways to improve my character. My complaint? No "save" feature. If you die, that's it, game over, start from 0. The plus side to dying is that you gain titles which give bonuses. The more you kill and the more "money" (I say "money" because it's not really money, it's basically points) you gain, the better title you get. I'm sure there are other factors but I haven't figured them out yet.<br />
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It's pretty fun, I wasted an entire day playing it. High Tea, the feature game on <a href="http://onemorelevel.com/">http://onemorelevel.com/</a> yesterday, is good too.<br />
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Anyway, it's time to get to "work". I left early because a snowstorm was slated for my region, but it took me the normal commute time to get here. Result is: I get to leave early! Stay hungry friends, and can we pretend that the weight on the rack is just the bar? Because I could really use a rep right now...Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-89325500753657157792011-02-19T08:08:00.000-05:002011-02-19T08:08:49.480-05:00Done with the Gold-Making GameTitle, kinda.<br />
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It's just not that interesting anymore; I log on, cut my gems, post them, and log onto my hunter. I'm not closing my blog, but we're going to shift gears a bit. It's just going to be about my general experiences, WoW and otherwise. I'm the Original WoW Banksta, so that's not going anywhere (c wut i did thar), but here we go.<br />
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I'm a Med Tech at Umass Memorial Hospital, for my day job. I'm per-diem now, with the agreed upon verbal contract that I'd be working 2-3 days per week as long as I was in school. However, they recently had a meeting saying they're about $11 million in the red, so guess who's the first to go! I'm not technically fired, but after this week I'm not on the schedule. Kinda wish I got laid off so I could collect the benefits package, but what're you going to do.<br />
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With my new "blessing" of time off, I'm going to go live with my 2nd account and do something only insane people do; get all 10 characters to level 85 (or however close I feel like getting). I'm going to RAF myself and get another 7 60's, here's how my roster looks now:<br />
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85 Shaman<br />
62 Hunter<br />
80 Warrior (whom I will be transferring over)<br />
31 Rogue<br />
20 Druid<br />
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So, my plan is after I get my Hunter to 70 or so (by Sunday evening, I'm going to start RAF next Monday morning), I'm going to level my first 2 characters to 59.75. I'm going to use the first "level gifts" on my Rogue to get him to 60, then I'm going to level a priest and paladin (both on my account) to 59.75 (59.75 because the RAF xp bonus ends when any character on either account reaches level 60). Once both of them are level 59.75, I'm going to use those level gifts to level another character to 60. The last one will gain enough level gifts to get my Druid to level 60.<br />
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This sounds so depressing. Haha I would take a trip, but I need to be in town for Mondays and Wednesdays for class. I may see if I can catch a cheap flight to NY or something for a weekend, and I'm definitely taking some time to visit my friend in RI. At any rate, that's my "project" for while I'm temporarily "laid off." I strongly doubt this will actually happen.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-44397088006112990702011-02-18T14:34:00.000-05:002011-02-18T14:34:39.891-05:00Decline of Material pricesSorry I haven't been updating recently, I haven't been feeling well and most often I just forget about it. Anyway, a quick update:<br />
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New guild is going well, we've taken down everyone so far and we're working on heroic modes. We got Halfus last Tuesday, but I don't know what else they've killed.<br />
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Got my hunter to level 58, on to Outlands! It'll be nice to have a huge gear jump, and deal more damage. At any rate, the heirloom pieces are helping (the bonus XP ones), and the guild cloak is good too. I'm looking forward to getting the guild headpiece, but that won't be for awhile.<br />
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Let's look at material prices today. Before, I said that an easy way to make gold was to turn the uncommon quality gems to jewelry pieces, and disenchant them. Is that still profitable? Let's look at it.<br />
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A cut uncommon gem vendors for 9g. So, if you're looking at, say Alicite, you'd expect a return of at least 10g per dust (2 Alicites required for the piece, on top of a Jeweler's setting). Check the Auction House, and what do you find? Dusts are 8g. They're actually down to 6g on my realm; this is good and bad.<br />
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This is good because it means that making enchanting scrolls will finally be profitable. For some reason, people don't want to pay as much for the scroll as they would pay for the raw materials. If you could purchase the wood for a desk for $60, you wouldn't expect the already made desk to go for $50.<br />
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This is bad, also. This is bad because it cuts down on your revenue. It reduces the value of hypnotic dust to the point where it's more profitable to cut the gems and vendor them. This means less supply from the smart economist, but all those people who are looking for some quick gold still have the same supply. The "quick gold" people will undercut each other until the price bottoms out, which will continue to reduce the efficacy of disenchanting and selling over vendoring.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-43989504302885618662011-02-15T12:38:00.000-05:002011-02-15T12:38:52.131-05:00Raised Gold CapAs a quick aside before we begin, I was on facebook this morning. I saw that one of my friends from middle school had not only got married to a 35 year old guy (I'm 24), but she already has a kid and another on the way. Wierd!<br />
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Anyway, so the gold cap has been raised. 1c shy of 1mil gold. It's nice in a way, not having to spread your gold around to different characters, but it also has a drawback; I can't say I'm goldcapped anymore. My ego hurts a little bit.<br />
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I'm currently leveling a hunter, who's at level 43, and I took advantage of the WoW sale where you could buy an online copy of the game for $5, and BC and WotLK were also $5. I bought a copy of WoW and plan to RAF myself so I can get the bonus, and that account can be the throwaway one, or used to transfer the characters to my main account. Now that I'm done working 40 hours and I'm only working 16 plus 2 grad courses, it leaves more "free time" to level, so I'll make better use of it now, I think. It's hard making gold with just one character who can do things, although with my new characters I'm sure it'll be better.<br />
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Your professions should go like this:<br />
1.) Jewelcrafting<br />
2.) Inscription<br />
3.) Enchanting (this will move up as mats become cheaper and more people are progressing to endgame and heroics)<br />
4.) Tailoring (bags AND threads)<br />
5.) Blacksmithing (Everyone needs belt buckles<br />
6.) Leatherworking<br />
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And then all the gathering professions. I believe this is an accurate list of the most profitable professions, in order.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-73480185300738250352011-02-14T08:44:00.000-05:002011-02-14T08:44:31.630-05:00Raid Experiences and Being FrugalMost of us raid, and raiding is fun. End game content, seeing 9/24 other people coordinate to achieve the same goal, and finally taking down the boss and getting all the phat lewtz is a good time. I recently just joined the top raiding guild on my server, and it's a fun but intense experience; there's a lot of pressure to perform and a lot of pressure to put out good numbers. There's a few ways to do this: food, flasks, and pots. These are expensive, but let's talk about ways to keep the repair costs down.<br />
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First, you should be buying the mats and getting the items made/making them yourself. I guarantee that there is a flask-specc'd Alchemist in your raid if you're raiding 25 mans. If not, be sure to get someone to make them (preferably from your guild, that way you avoid the tip as well - this isn't rude, as I craft anything for guild-mates without a tip) beforehand. If you're making potions, be sure the person is a potion-specc'd Alchemist. For food, there's not much you can do.<br />
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I'd stay away from farming the material: if you're looking at it from a pure gold per hour standpoint, it's almost always "cheaper" to purchase from the Auction House. I know Deep Sea Sagefish (to make Severed Sagefish Heads) cost approximately half of the finished product. Pro Tip: You can also make these and sell for a decent amount of gold!<br />
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If you must buy pre-made flasks/pots, buy ONLY WHAT YOU NEED. Prices WILL come down soon, and you don't want to be the guy who invests 4,000g in flasks only to find out that the price dropped to half that in a month.<br />
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And of course, try not to die.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-41064704360390482682011-02-11T14:18:00.000-05:002011-02-11T14:18:37.025-05:00No WoW Post TodayNo WoW Post today, sorry guys. I'm gearing up for the gym and heading to Boston for the weekend. Going to spend Valentine's Day Weekend with a special lady.<br />
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At any rate, heading for a bench PR today (been training inconsistently for about 2 months so it's only at 180 or so), and a squat PR (125 yes!). Everyone, Patellar Tendinitis sucks.<br />
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That's it, for now. Enjoy the weekend, I'll be back on Monday.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-28522676465169869552011-02-10T20:00:00.000-05:002011-02-10T20:00:10.395-05:00Leveling Alts...for Profit!Sorry for the late post today, but here we go again.<br />
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Lately, I've been taking an interest in my alt, a level 34 hunter. I started him about a month ago, but I rarely play on this character. I have 3 heirloom pieces, the 10% guild bonus, and level extremely quickly, and I have 500g. 0 to 500g, no Auction House flipping, nothing other than doing quests. How?<br />
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1.) Don't buy items from the Auction House. Let's be honest; you'll be using that green belt for like, 5 levels max. Will you REALLY notice the improvement from an extra point of agility or intellect?<br />
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2.) Put EVERYTHING on the Auction House. Someone out there will buy it. Be smart when you're putting things up, though. The Auction House can easily be flooded by newbies selling [Easy Cooking Material 3] which higher leveled characters may be willing to pay 5g for, but the newbies will list it for 3s. I'll never forget it. I found <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=2011">Twisted Sabre</a> on my warrior, my very first character. I said in Trade, "WTS [Twisted Sabre] PST!" Someone did, and I let it go for 2g. I found out about a week later that there were 3 in the Auction House for 50g.<br />
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3.) If it doesn't sell on the Auction House, be sure to check to see if it's worth it. A recent mistake I made was putting a pattern up on the Auction House, for 3s. The deposit was 1s. If I didn't sell it, there would be no point in re-listing it. If it sold the 2nd time, I'd break even. If it doesn't sell, then I start to lose money.<br />
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4.) Take 2 gathering professions. With the new tracking system, you'll be able to track both minerals and herbs at the same time. I took mining and skinning, because I play a Worgen; increased skinning skill and speed. If you take herbalism and mining, though, you'll be able to gain experience off of both; the downside of skinning is that you only get experience from the mob kill.<br />
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That's all for today, folks.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-8713963440953544882011-02-09T12:16:00.000-05:002011-02-09T12:16:58.017-05:00New JC MetasShort post today, sorry, but I have a lot to do. Will do my blogroll later.<br />
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The new JC Meta gems are out on the market: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68778">Agile Shadowspirit</a>, <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=68779">Reverberating Shadowspirit</a>, and <a href="http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=68780">Burning Shadowspirit</a> (Yes, still on WoWhead PTR). These are going to equal big gold for Jewelcrafters, or whomever gets them made.<br />
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The new gems are a big upgrade over the old 54 crit rating Chaotic Shadowspirit, judging by the fact that for my class/spec (elemental Shaman), Critical Strike Rating is about half as effective for me as straight up Intellect. I'm sure it's similar for others as well.<br />
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Don't bother trying to farm the recipes, though. They're BoE world drops, which means you just have to get "lucky." I'd recommend checking out the Auction House, although these patterns are very likely to go for upwards of 5,000g. It's like the new expansion all over again; a new item has just been introduced that is extremely helpful for raiders, and it is very rare. Supply and Demand, and all that.<br />
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Likewise, you could work out a deal with a Jewelcrafter; you supply the meta gems, and the JCer will cut the diamonds. You'll give him/her a set amount, and you sell the cut gems on the Auction House.<br />
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I've seen people offering to cut these gems for 1k. Yes, 1,000g JUST for them to click the button to make your gem. I'm all for tipping and charging for tradeskills, and I'm sure people are paying that 1,000g for the item to be made. Now is the time for profit!Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-4127910578845051872011-02-08T08:56:00.000-05:002011-02-08T08:56:32.816-05:00Locking in your Bid, 4.0.6 TodayA great way to snag auctions at low prices is the little-used "bid" feature. 99.9% of the time, the bid price is lower than the buyout price. So, when should you use the "bid" instead of the "buyout," and when is it safe?<br />
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Right before maintenance! Auction timers continue even after the servers go down. So, what you do is scan the Auction House before a maintenance, and bid on anything you want that has less than 12 hours to go. The servers go down, your bid is in place, and there's nobody to oppose you!<br />
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Of course, there's still the chance that either 1.) someone will out-bid you before server maintenance happens, or 2.) the auction will still be there when the servers become live again, but your bid is essentially safe during the downtime.<br />
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<a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2172-Patch-4.0.6-on-live-realms-this-week">MMO Champion</a> has also confirmed that Patch 4.0.6 is today. Lots of exciting changes coming up.<br />
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The Chaotic and Relentless are requiring 3 red gems instead of more blue gems than red gems, which will lead to increased sales. I'm not sure why people are bothering, though, because the stats are going to be equivalent; remember reforging?<br />
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There are new Shadowspirit diamonds out, too, which will drive the price of raw materials up. Did you stock up on JC tokens?<br />
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Flask materials are down, which will drive the price down, and make them more affordable. This is good for us, too. You can craft more flasks for the same price, and more flasks crafted means more procs, and more procs is more profit!<br />
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That's all for today folks, enjoy 4.0.6 and hopefully rake in a few thousand extra gold this week.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-47393286270569619602011-02-07T13:39:00.000-05:002011-02-07T13:39:29.886-05:00Jewelcrafting for Quick Gold after ProspectingFirst off, sorry for not updating for a few days; I was out of town unexpectedly, but now I'm back in the saddle again!<br />
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Let's talk about a quick and easy topic for making gold today: Jewelcrafting. The new jewelry pieces are about the same as the old ones, if you did the saronite shuffle back in the day. You take a gem and a jeweler's setting (purchasable for 1.2g from the vendor at exalted), and turn it into a jewelry piece that vendors for 9g. Considering the cut gem vendors for 9g, you're not really making any headway here. The real trick is to disenchant said jewelry piece, and sell the dust on the Auction House.<br />
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Last I checked, Alicite goes for 8g on my Auction House. 16g for 2, plus the 1.2g for the setting, is 17.2g. Disenchanted, this gives us on average 2 Hypnotic Dusts, or 2 Lesser Celestial Essences. The dust is what we'll break even on, they sell for roughly 8.5g, or 17g for 2 on the Auction House. The Lesser Celestial Essences, however, go for about 14g each. Assuming 75% of the time we get dusts, and 25% of the time we get essences (lesser), this gives us 19g, or a profit of roughly 2g per craft, or 1g per Alicite, over what you would have sold it for on the Auction House raw. This is, of course, discounting the rare-quality jewelry piece which you could sell for 100g or more on the Auction House.<br />
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Don't forget that Carnelians are much more valuable, being able to be crafted into <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=52492/carnelian-spikes">Carnelian Spikes</a> and disenchanted for close to 100% profit. You could also take the disenchanting game one step further and use the dusts and essences to make scrolls, which generally sell for more on the Auction House than pure materials.<br />
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That's all for today, check in tomorrow and we'll talk about bid-locking during maintenance.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-76623444680283643662011-02-02T11:23:00.000-05:002011-02-02T11:23:44.893-05:00ZeroAuctions and YouToday, we're going to talk about one of my favorite addons, ZeroAuction. This auction is a followup to QuickAuction, an addon that was popular back in Wrath that mostly automated the actions of posting on the Auction House.<br />
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ZeroAuctions has a sharp learning curve, so I'm hoping this mini-guide will get you set up. First thing you need to do is get the addon, <a href="http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/zeroauctions.aspx">here on Curse.com</a>. After installing it, type, "/za config" to bring up the menu screen. It'll look like this:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJo1yuAM_5qRqRZHTg1IflBD_drizgaTQiBBj_lE86H8Wtt8InQHLwvqge0LPtkuj399tSq38whyphenhyphenxHbIpv1ZgSRlSeLL-bS7TZpP_XY5n3DuTVDFmqX10Xrxr2jcyNpeuErnUTOLzORxyO/s1600/Main+Screen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJo1yuAM_5qRqRZHTg1IflBD_drizgaTQiBBj_lE86H8Wtt8InQHLwvqge0LPtkuj399tSq38whyphenhyphenxHbIpv1ZgSRlSeLL-bS7TZpP_XY5n3DuTVDFmqX10Xrxr2jcyNpeuErnUTOLzORxyO/s400/Main+Screen.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>This is the general screen. I don't worry so much about this, I usually manually set the prices for things on the group screen, which we'll talk about later.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw3nkPpcXAH9zN-kCvSLMLcgBs02R0UGmPrxzfrlxjf0-yKxp-UhHm-zu9y1C_d8cctIqqi1neSnkqRpYK8X0S0AwVm4buQj3cO2B08r_zuG1VKm4_JNQ4xZv48N9iQ-mZ-iSMVJ5hT2l2/s1600/Item+Groups.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw3nkPpcXAH9zN-kCvSLMLcgBs02R0UGmPrxzfrlxjf0-yKxp-UhHm-zu9y1C_d8cctIqqi1neSnkqRpYK8X0S0AwVm4buQj3cO2B08r_zuG1VKm4_JNQ4xZv48N9iQ-mZ-iSMVJ5hT2l2/s400/Item+Groups.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Here's an image of the "Item Groups" Screen. Here, you just make your group: type in a group name, and press the "Okay" button that will pop up next to the box. For now, let's name it "Blue Gems." I've already made my category, and a few others.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT1S7Yxegp7tN51nVaA9RGdP9CEseeky5UGhurYevofzY8-gpwlDmHIElJR_uR-ZSAl7ycueKuR5eBaHVRtG06vbxfhDvzuMhsp1l90tZI3P0sfA3PieQ8hMbgYDRlcpJXmMrUGUZmw8uj/s1600/Fallback.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="505" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT1S7Yxegp7tN51nVaA9RGdP9CEseeky5UGhurYevofzY8-gpwlDmHIElJR_uR-ZSAl7ycueKuR5eBaHVRtG06vbxfhDvzuMhsp1l90tZI3P0sfA3PieQ8hMbgYDRlcpJXmMrUGUZmw8uj/s640/Fallback.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>This is the main screen. You can see that I have a Blue Gems category, a "Blue Gems - Cheap" category (for gems that regularly only sell for 20-30g), a jewelry category for the rare items made by crafting the jewelry recipes, and a "Misc" section (yeah come at me bro) for miscellaneous items that I may need to list for a week straight to get a buyer. Sorry about the formatting there, but having it larger is necessary.<br />
At any rate, let's talk about the sections here, because it looks ridiculous. The heading of each section has a sentence, and that sentence is describing what the addon will do in different situations. Since this is just a crash course, I'll go through the sections that really matter, and hopefully the rest will come as you pick it up (it's really not that complicated).<br />
1.)Quantity - how many of an auction should be posted at a time. I enable my overrides, because I didn't set up my general tab and I like to put in individual quantities for each auction grouping. The same goes for other overrides. I have mine set at 3, with 1 per auction. This means that it will attempt to post 3 auctions of 1 item. Fairly straightforward.<br />
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2.) Price - How much it will be listed for. <br />
Undercut: Make it a random, low number. I like 32s58c, it seems computer generated and will leave your competition thinking that you don't know what you're doing<br />
Threshold: How low an auction can go before it won't list. I have my threshold at 40g, so if the cheapest auction is 35g, it won't list mine.<br />
Price Gap: If there is a 1000% difference between the cheapest and 2nd cheapest, it will undercut the 2nd cheapest. This is to prevent people screwing with other people who only use Auctioneer, by listing 1 hypnotic dust for 30s and watching everyone else list theirs for 25s. If someone lists a gem for 1g when everyone else is listing theirs for 50g, ZA will undercut the 50g auction and leave the 1g auction alone.<br />
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3.)Fallbacks - What to set your auction for when there are none up<br />
Override Auto Fallback: Again, I like to individually set the parameters of each group<br />
Fallback: I have mine set at 200g. This is saying that if nobody has auctions up of Item X, then it will list Item X for 200g.<br />
AutoFallback: If the price goes below my threshold, it will list at the fallback. This is usually bad, and I like to handle cases like this in a case-by-case manner. If 20 people are listing their gems at 39g, ZA will list mine at 200g, and I'll have wasted the deposit fee.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj49iumQEhFrRHvxyCyFt-caC5kerxqX1ES-IIOLl0wssl1SFIa3vYaovd9glsCqQmsrdGlvCKcGf8JDfs6yYwGWc5_EuZtCmhXSInZnaV0YM-yk2_qHY6A1O3Xh8syDcqkoTSpwyNTdJp7/s1600/Add+Items.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj49iumQEhFrRHvxyCyFt-caC5kerxqX1ES-IIOLl0wssl1SFIa3vYaovd9glsCqQmsrdGlvCKcGf8JDfs6yYwGWc5_EuZtCmhXSInZnaV0YM-yk2_qHY6A1O3Xh8syDcqkoTSpwyNTdJp7/s400/Add+Items.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>One last thing to talk about: the Add Items screen. This is straightforward: you click the item you want to add to the group. If you want to add all, say, glyphs, simply type "Glyph of" in the box and it'll add all the glyphs you have in your bag to the item group. To remove items click on the "Remove Items" tab (highlighted by my mouse) and it's the same interface, only you click the items you want to remove. You can only add or remove items in your inventory, not your bank or your alts. It will, however, save configurations across all your alts, so you don't need to set it up differently for each alt you have.<br />
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That's all for today, may your coffers be full and may your auctions never bounce back to your mailbox.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-3987125621060080972011-02-01T09:23:00.000-05:002011-02-01T09:23:46.427-05:00Whoo Day Off!It's my day off! Actually, I just went back to grad school so I'm down to working 2 days a week. 2 more classes to go and I'll have my Master's!<br />
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On with the post. Buying from hacked people!<br />
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BUT WAIT ISN'T THAT HORRIBLE THEY GET HACKED AND LOSE EVERYTHING BLUHBLUHBLUH<br />
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Yeah it is bad that they got hacked, and yeah it is bad that they're losing their items, gear, etc. Where it's good is that we get good deals. Follow my logic here.<br />
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If you buy from a guy who is selling radios out of the back of his van, saying his "cousin's brother's nephew-in-law's warehouse didn't need them," chances are they're stolen, especially if he's selling them for $30 each when they're $100 new. You buy one, the police catch him, he turns you in, the police come to your house and take your radio. You're out $30 and a radio. This is real life. Do not attempt this at home (or on the city streets after 1AM).<br />
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If you buy from a guy who's hacked, selling gear because he's "quitting playing" for 30g when it's normally 100g, I BUY IT ALL. Every last item. Chances are, he's hacked, and the guy whom he is hacking is calling Blizzard to get his account back now. Time is of the essence, and they want a short quick sale. Blizzard is like the police in this case, too. Blizzard will get the account back, and put the guy in "jail" (I'm assuming they follow the gold trail and ban whomever gets the gold, but I don't know).<br />
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Where WoW differs from the real world (as opposed to, you know, EVERYTHING ELSE), is that Blizzard isn't just the police. Blizzard is also GOD. Blizzard looks at the character log, inventory, etc. from a day or two before the player got hacked, and puts everything back. Blizzard then sees that the person traded with you, and disregards it.<br />
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So you see, the player gets all their inventory back. The hacker gets banned (presumably), and you get a great deal on lots of items. It's a win/win! (okay, a win/win/lose)Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8994507097638276571.post-30690896875489166342011-01-31T08:49:00.001-05:002011-01-31T08:49:56.744-05:00Questing and Grinding for GoldFirst, let me say I'm not an advocate for grinding, nor questing for gold. However, some people enjoy it. I like to optimize my time, whether I'm playing WoW, working or in the gym, and I just don't feel that it's a good use of time for me. To each their own, however, and I know people do it. Let's look at why:<br />
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1.) Instant gratification. You either get 13g/16g instantly plus a quest reward turning in quests, plus trash and silver drops.<br />
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2.) Materials and Uncommon items. Unless you're fighting mobs that don't drop loot, you'll more than likely come across massive amounts of cloth and Uncommon items to either Disenchant or sell as-is on the Auction House.<br />
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3.) Possibility to come across nodes. If you're a skinner, you may be able to skin the quest mobs/mobs you're grinding on. If you're a miner/herbalist, you could maybe find herbs or mineral nodes to harvest while you're questing or grinding. More profit.<br />
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This is all sounding good so far. Let's look at it a little deeper.<br />
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If you quested until 85, and did all the quests in all the zones (or at least most of them), without any instances or experience bonuses (heirloom pieces, guild perk, etc.), you probably hit 85 somewhere in the Twilight Highlands, assuming you started in Vashj'ir or Mount Hyjal (and didn't do the other starting zone). That's a lot of parentheses. Anyway, this leaves very little to do in the way of quests to make gold, however, you can do dailies! Hooray!<br />
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Wildhammer/Dragonmaw Clan has dailies in Twilight Highlands, Therazene has dailies in Deepholm, and Ramhaken has a couple quests. You won't get a ton of gold, but you'll get a little bit and faction rep (which is why people do these dailies anyway). So where's the money? Doing old quests.<br />
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WHAT but why would I do those, rewards are outdated and bluh bluh whatever. Let's be cereal for a minute here. Old quests (green quests) are easier to complete. Mobs have 13,000 hp as opposed to 70,000hp, and there's nobody there. So, what do? Go kill those guys. You'll be surprised to see that the silver drops aren't that much lower, but 1.) Nobody will be farming them, and 2.) You'll kill them a lot quicker. Not to mention, the rewards for each of the Ramhaken daily quests (aside from the reputation) is 10g. The reward from the Icecrown tournament dailies is 13g. Which wins? Yeah, I thought so.<br />
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In addition, there are 2 great spots in Icecrown to grind gold. See image:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL8RgAwiLVWJFimnoa1Tp4j4xlfKdy9sLjBAoNIloqvJi-NwQJheDhsWKpz3xJyc7aWqKGaG8CvWPdiODnGTfTzyxI2dA9NUIWN6q3nod9-fvgqKE1cTdcfDYWOEOvs2nUjZdbaat-BHS3/s1600/untitled.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL8RgAwiLVWJFimnoa1Tp4j4xlfKdy9sLjBAoNIloqvJi-NwQJheDhsWKpz3xJyc7aWqKGaG8CvWPdiODnGTfTzyxI2dA9NUIWN6q3nod9-fvgqKE1cTdcfDYWOEOvs2nUjZdbaat-BHS3/s400/untitled.PNG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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The yellow part is where you should go for AoE farming: There are a lot of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=32255/converted-hero">Converted Heroes</a> here, for the daily and also for your grinding pleasure. Each one will drop roughly 20s, and they come in packs of 5-6. Mix that in with the grey items that vendor for around 1g each (on average), the cloth and greens, and you have yourself a nice little farming spot.<br />
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The red part is where you go for huge single-target damage. The Hidden Hollow, below Onslaught Harbor, houses elite level 80 mobs, who have in the vicinity of 20,000hp. Should be cake at level 85. They drop about a gold each, around 6 frostweave, and of course the usual assortment of Uncommon and vendor trash items. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=29614/onslaught-darkweaver">Onslaught Darkweaver</a> is one, and I've forgotten the name of the melee mob that resides here as well. A half hour in the cave should net you at least 300g, if not more.Slokihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171019907671611512noreply@blogger.com2