"One Month, One Toon" Challenge Update: Day 29

So I am officially on my last day of my "One Month, One Toon" Challenge. In just over 12 hours I will be able to finally start playing my other characters! If you've been watching my livestreams (twitch.tv/jimyounkin) over the last month you know that there have been times where I've chaffed under the Challenge's restrictions of only playing one character for an entire month.

After the jump I talk a bit about what I've learned from the challenge, some unexpected side-effects. What I hated most. What I loved most. What I did (and didn't) get accomplished and more this last month.

What Went Wrong?

I thought I'd start with a few of the things I set out to accomplish in the "One Month, One Toon" challenge that went wrong. One of my initial reasons for starting the challenge was to get the feeling back that I felt (or, rather, thought I remember feeling) back in TBC when I only had one character to worry about. That feeling was there initially in the challenge and they led to me finally fully gemming and enchanting my Hunter's gear. That took all of a few hours and then was forgotten for the rest of the month.

I also think I may have gotten mixed up about how my nostalgia for TBC should mix with this challenge. I had thought I would do things like go back and quest through TBC zones (didn't happen) and perhaps even go back and explore all the TBC instances (happened a few times). Honestly I just didn't take the time to reminisce like that over the last month. I think I may have missed an opportunity there.

I was also planning to learn the "secrets" of Engineering and Enchanting with all my "spare time" this last month. That didn't really happen. I don't really know how to make more gold out of Enchanting and Engineering at the end of this month. I made a few Engineering pets which didn't really sell that well. That was about it.

I guess if I was to go back I might try to force myself to learn more about Enchanting and Engineering but I'm not sure it would work. There just seems to be some professions I am destined to not really know that well. Opportunity missed? Perhaps, but I tend to go where the "fun" is and perhaps I just don't find Engineering and Enchanting to be "fun" professions as far as gold-making goes.

What Went Right?

This one is pretty easy. I learned the mogging market like the back of my hand. Not having any other distractions I was able to take where I was in mogging sales before the Challenge and push it to a whole new level. In the last 29 days I have become the premier source for mogging items on my server. I have people sending me whispers requesting items, complimenting me on how they love seeing my items in the AH (as well as getting upset at the audacity I must have to put items up for such high prices when the truth is my prices are low compared to some servers).

That's a pretty good feeling and I'm not sure that I'll go back to selling the items on my Death Knight. I have established a name for myself on the server and that carries a lot of weight. My repeat customers may be more likely to buy an item from me than a competitor because they simply like me and the items I sell.

Before the challenge I dabbled in Mogging items. Now I run my mogging market like a well-oiled machine. I have been struggling with pricing over the last month but just in the last week have finally been able to find pricing that has really started to break through on my server. While sales took almost two months to finally start kicking in I see bright things ahead for my mogging market going forward.

The 77-80 Cataclysm greens I wrote about last week (see Selling 77-80 Cata Gear To Scroll Of Resurrection Level 80s) have been selling far better then even I had anticipated. I've been pulling in huge amounts of gold from my mail box from these items alone. I'm not generally one to speak in hyperbole but these sales have knocked my socks off.

The one reason I think I've been able to do so well in the 77-80 Cata greens market is that I already had a system set up to sell mogging items and have been able to apply all the same skills to the 77-80 Cata greens market. If you think about it they are very similar. Mogging items are items that you can pick up for relatively cheap prices and flip for higher prices due to their great looks. 77-80 Cata greens are items you can also pick up for cheap that are able to be flipped for their good stats.

If you've been watching my livestreams in the last week you've seen me be amazed at how insatiable the 77-80 Cata greens market is. With all these new "Insta-80s" coming into the game people are snapping this stuff up almost faster than I can post it. Crazy stuff. It's all due to my diligence in first honing my skills with mogging items.

What Will I Take Away?

So what has the challenge ultimately taught me? That, even if you're a single toon, if you know what you're doing in (what you could broadly called) the "flipping markets" (mogging and 77-80 Cata greens) you can make decent gold with almost no use of professions. This was quite a surprise to me as I went into the challenge thinking my gold-making would dwindle by not having access to my army of crafting alts. It didn't. I just had to get creative.

I missed my alts. There were numerous times throughout the Challenge where I wishes I could simply swap over to my Alchemists to do some transmutes I needed. There were times I wished I could just jump to my Tailor or Leatherworker to take advantage of the opportunities I saw in crafting and selling level 77-80 gear to Scroll of Resurrection players, but I couldn't.

I'll be very happy to have access to my alts again, all 10 of them. That said, I'm not sure I'll ever play them the way I used to. This challenge may have permanently put my hunter in the "driver's seat" for all my gold-making. Alts from now on (at least until I decide to level them in Mists of Pandaria) may simply be "crafting machines" to me.

While this is a bit sad to me (I have vague back stories for almost all of them) I think it will ultimately help me enjoy the game a bit more. I won't have to be worrying what I'm supposed to do or which character I'm supposed to play. I don't think my alt-itus will ever really be cured. I'm not sure I want it to be. Alts are one of my favorite parts of the game. That said I will always looks at them in a different way after this Challenge.

What I'm Looking Forward To?

So with just 12 hours left in the "One Month, One Toon" Challenge what am I looking forward to most? Well honestly, I am looking forward to having access again to my 4 Alchemists daily transmutes again. When I think of the money I missed out on having 120 days (4x30 days) worth of transmutes sitting idle, it makes me sad. That could have been 120 more Essence of Air I could be saving for MoP hierloom enchants. That could be 120 bars of Truegold. I'm sad but, I took one for the team.

One of the things that happened during the Challenge was Blizzard released it's revamped Scroll of Resurrection. I had 5 inactive World of Warcraft accounts from back in my "Recruit-a-Friend All The Things!!" days and was able to get all of them upgraed to Cataclysm for free along with creating 5 Insta-80s, 4 of which will simply expire after the free 7 days of game time and sit there in case I ever want to pay $25 to move them to one of my main accounts.

I did pay for one of my newly Scrolled accounts in order to get April the Spectral Gryphon mount. That secondary account will now become my main second account. (Yes I did say "main second account". When you have multiple second accounts it important to distinguish which is my main.) I have a level 82 Male Worgen Resto Druid that I am leveling up with April and it will be nice to play him any time I want. After hating on Male Worgen for the entire expansion I have to say I was missing out. Male Worgen looks pretty kick ass in lots of different types of armor.

Would I Recommend The Challenge?

Yes and no. Yes if you are like me and like experimenting and pushing yourself to try new things in order to keep the game fresh. No if you are the type who won't be able to stick to the challenge. I'm not going to lie to you. It wasn't easy. There were times when I was ready to throw in the towel. I didn't, but I wanted to.

You may think a challenge like this would be easy but it wasn't. At least not for me. And I like that it wasn't easy. People suggested I should have done a "One Toon, Two Week" challenge. Like I alluded to in my Day 11 Challenge update, anyone can sprint a short distance but it takes stamina to be in it for the long haul.

Ultimately I had fun. I learned the Mogging and 77-80 Cata green markets like the back of my hand. I'm known as the mogging seller on my market now. All in all I'd say it was very worth it.

Show Me The Money

So just because I know people will ask how much gold I made on my "One Toon" in the last 30 days: as it stands now it looks like I made roughly 110k gold in the last 30 days. Not as impressive as some gold-makers I know, but not too shabby considering I was working almost entirely without professions. I'm happy with 110k.

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