Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I’ll be going over my impressions of the latest expansion pack to hit the shelves. Kick back and enjoy… everything old is new again.
The cataclysm has come and the very bedrock of the world (of warcraft) has been shattered: the economy. In the first day or two after the expansion went live, the auction house was rocked by massive selloffs of Lich King supplies and an absolute feeding frenzy by people rushing to level up crafting professions to new heights or get whatever advantage they could in the Great Race to 85. For months max level players had been stockpiling gold for release and now it all was being spent in an orgy of unbridled consumption.
The second biggest winners were the gatherers who fed the mobs what they wanted at prices that were nothing less than astronomical. ‘New dust’ was trading at up to 100g each and stocks of herb, skins, and enchanting materials disappearing of the shelves as fast as they were posted. The biggest winners? Those with the capital to corner the market on the horrifically overpriced goods and resell them at rates that would make Midas blush with shame. Lacking the initial capital to be a true robber baron, I bought and sold what I could. The free market was a maelstrom I intended to weather.
Starting with 4k coin-- not a trivial amount, I realize, I disenchanted nearly every quest reward I could find and skinned anything with a pulse. The hardest part was resisting the temptation to post ‘the lowest price’ for quick sales. Hour after hour my fortunes grew and within a day I was sitting at four times my starting capital.
It’s now been a week after Cataclysm launched and I’m sitting at a very comfortable 13k in the bank…after spending 22k leveling Enchanting up to max and spending a couple thousand on pets and mounts because I could. All total I beat out the “capped by cata” gold blogger by a smooth 3k. I’d call that a ‘win’.
Material prices will fall in about a week or so, but I’ve liquidated my ‘excess’ materials at this point, so I won’t be left holding the proverbial bag.
So, where to go from here? Time to get my fishing up—there’s still an incredibly large demand for certain fish (lavascale in particular) and most would rather do anything but fish. Combine that with the level of fishing required to succeed anywhere except pools in the new areas and you’ve got profit potential.
Tomorrow: The Zone Ranger
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