One Million Gold (And Counting!)

I finally reached "gold-cap" of 1 million gold yesterday (Friday the 13th of April, 2012) on the morning livestream! (To see the moment I actually hit gold-cap follow this twitch.tv link.) I have to say that, while I am feeling mixed emotions, the feeling I'm feeling most is happiness. Read on past the jump for a few of my thoughts as a newly gold-capped player and where I go from here.

I'm a Tortoise, Not a Hare

The first think I have to admit is that I am much more of a "tortoise" than a "hare" when it comes to gold-making. I feel it has taken me significantly longer than many other gold-makers I know to reach gold-cap. I started writing Power Word: Gold over a year ago and that is about how long it has taken me to reach gold-cap.

While I know each gold-maker is different I have to say that a few factors contributed to me taking so long to reach cap. Namely my penchant for experimentation along with my risk and competition aversion. For me making gold is much much more about the journey. About the exploration. About the experimentation and enjoyment of teaching and sharing with others. The gold I receive along the way feels much more like a by-product rather than the goal in itself.

Also contributing to me slow gold growth was my high risk aversion. I like to make gold in ways that have very little risk. These ways often offer a fairly low amount of gold in return but can (almost always) be relied upon to provide profits. A few of these techniques are selling only when prices reach a level of my liking (which often involves waiting). Other techniques in this vein are flipping items at reasonable markups. If I feel I can make some gold on something, even if only a little, I'll do it.

The last factor that I feel lead to my slow gold growth was my tendency to steer clear of markers with heavy competition. If a gold-making technique required me to constantly camp the auction house, competing against what I call "tenacious competitors" I often simply left the market all together. This happened, for example, in glyphs and gems. I like to enjoy myself while making gold and playing on their terms isn't enjoyable for me.

What Sold?

A question many of you might be asking is what did I sell to get to gold-cap? Well it depends on which "era" of the expansion and my gold-making journey you are referring to. One of the advantages of writing a blog, doing a podcast and livestreaming is that you talk about what you do in gold-making. A lot. While some of it is a bit fuzzy here are a few of the things that stood out in my mind as far as ways I made my gold.

1-250k - The Obsidium Shuffle (and lots of it). Early on in the expansion the Obsidium Shuffle was one of my major gold-making tactics. Back when uncommons vendored for ridiculously high prices, the Shuffle was a way of life. Other tactics I used to make gold during this time were Alchemy transmutes many other things I can't quite remember. (See also: My Secret Shame: 250K Is The Most Gold I've Ever Owned and Hall of Fame – 250K Gold Club: “fluxdada” aka Power Word: Gold)

250-500k - This era gets a bit fuzzy. I believe I was trying all sorts of techniques to make gold on my push to 500k. I know for sure that I got stuck around 400k for a long time. I think I was selling a little bit of everything and trying lots of things. I do remember I had pretty much stopped shuffling by this point. (Thanks  for the nerf Blizz!)

500-750k - This era is much easier to remember because I believe that I was just over 500k or so when I started my One Month, One Toon Challenge. This means that a large chunk of this gold-making time was devoted to two techniques: flipping mogging items and (once the new Scroll or Resurrection came along) flipping 77-80 Cataclysm greens. I'd love to tell you mogging took off but it really didn't on my server. I did much better in 77-80 Cataclysm greens though.

750k-1,000,000 -  This part of the goal is very fresh in my mind. I think I've made the last 250k in the last 3-4 weeks and the vast majority of this gold has come from flipping 77-80 Cataclysm green items. Every once and a while the stars align and you find a technique that not only has low competition but high demand. For me, right now, on my server, this is that market and I've been working as hard as I can at the market and it's been paying off. The reason I was able to hit gold-cap before Mists of Pandaria was because of these 77-80 Cataclysm green items.

So Now What?

So, now that I've reached a million gold, what does the future hold? Well, to tell you the truth, it holds about the same things that is has held in the past. I've often said I'm a gold-maker much more interested in the process of gold-making than the end result of obtaining the actual gold. With that being true, I was never actually "going for gold-cap", it just sort of snuck up on me.

I don't expect to be doing anything different than before because you can never really learn everything there is to know about gold-making. That is the beauty of gold-making as a meta-game insider World of Warcraft, there is always something new to learn. I look forward to learning (and sharing) much much more.

How Does It Make You Feel Baby?

How does hitting gold-cap make me feel? Happiness as well as a bit of relief. When someone asks me how much gold I have it seems right to be able to tell them "1 Million". As a gold blogger, someone who works to teach others about gold-making, being able to have the fact that I hit gold-cap as a sort of onofficial "credential" feels good. While I never judge anyone based on the amount of gold they have, others aren't so open-minded.

Also it feels good to be able to add my own One Million gold milestone to our Community Gold-Making Milestones page. (If we've missed your milestone post please let us know. Instructions are on the page.)

Most of all I was glad that I was able to hit gold-cap while on a livestream and have many of you there with me. I care about this community so much and loved being able to share the exciting moment with you all. We have such a great community. I would have never maintained the drive and motivation to keep pushing ahead if I didn't have all of you.

Here's to all of our continued success!

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