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From the desktop of Jonathan Kenins...
Today's technique genuinely ranks as a WoW power secret.
With nothing more than a level 1 alt character and a littlegold to bankroll the operation - say about 10g - 20g - you canearn 200 gold, 300 gold, even 500 gold in a day.
My own test run today turned a tidy sum of 640g. See below for details.
Very few players are aware of this technique. And even those who KNOW about it (and try to do it) are mostly not taking full advantage, because they don't know how it works in detail.
Best of all: this is super easy to do, and you can do it atany level.
Now I have to admit that this isn't one of the mostentertaining ways to make gold. It's actually rather boringand time consuming.
Luckily, you can do it in the background while you work onsomething else. In fact, I'm running this technique on twoservers right now, as I write this issue of Secret Warcraft...good thing I have 3 computers on my desk :)
I've also been known to do this while I'm raiding on anotherserver.
I'm talking about buying limited supply herbs and motes fromthe vendors at the Darkmoon Faire. Then selling the goods onthe auction house, of course.
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Darkmoon Faire for Fun and Profit
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You are probably aware of the Darkmoon Faire. It's a week-longspecial event that happens every month. The location rotatesbetween Alliance territory (outside Goldshire, in ElwynnForest), Horde territory (outside Thunderbluff, in Mulgore),and the Outlands (outside Shattrath, in Terrokar).
The event has plenty of fun and games, as well as usefultreats and buffs. There are card sets to collect and turn infor excellent Trinkets, 2-hour stat buffs given out by afortune teller, an exotic non-combat pet that few players knowabout (the Jubling), and the ever popular Tonk combat.
The money-maker is the opportunity to buy large quantities oflimited-supply items from the two Exotic Goods vendors. Theyshare a tent at the back of the Faire grounds.
Lhara ("Darkmoon Faire Exotic Goods") sells herbs of allkinds, several types of leather, and a selection of greenBows, Daggers and Staffs of various levels. Standing besideher, Professor Thaddeus Paleo ("Darkmoon Faire Cards andExotic Goods") sells motes (Mote of Fire, Mote of Air etc.),scrolls (Scroll of Agility III etc.), healing and manapotions. And every now and then, he pops some high-end rawgems (Nightseye, Living Ruby, Noble Topaz).
The main reason most players have no idea what a gold minethis is: if you just walk up to the Vendors' stand andopen a trade window, you will almost always see very littlefor sale. This is because the stuff sells out almostimmediately when it pops up, since almost all of it can besold easily at a profit.
So the big secret that I'm sharing with you now is that there-spawn rate (how often the limited supply items re-appearfor sale) is extremely fast, by comparison with all otherlimited-supply vendor opportunities in the game.
Normally, limited supply items come up for sale on a 1-hour,2-hour, 4-hour, or even once-a-day timer. The more valuableand desirable items are always on very long timers. But at theDarkmoon Faire, we're looking at re-spawn timers measured inminutes, not hours, even for some very valuable profit-makingitems.
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Timing Is Everything
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To be specific, I have studied the re-spawn patterns for thetwo most profit-making categories of goods: herbs, and motes.
Here's how it works. For each category of goods (herbs,leather, motes) there is a separate spawn timer. Each timethere is a spawn, a whole group of items appears all at once,selected from a loot table.
Take herbs for example. Lhara spawns a batch of herbs every 11- 20 minutes, mostly in the 14 - 16 minute range. Each spawnincludes between 3 and 8 individual items, in quantitiesranging from 1 to 4. So you may get a spawn of 2 Fel Lotus, 4Wild Steelbloom, 3 Earthroot, 2 Terocone and 1 Nightmare Vine.Grab 'em quick!
The complete "loot table" for herbs includes most of theflowers in the game, including Black Lotus, Ghost Mushroom andMountain Silversage. A few notables are missing (I think,since I've never seen them), including Briarthorn, DreamingGlory and Felweed. Even the rarest and most valuable herbs,including Fel Lotus and Black Lotus, come up quite frequently.
Similarly, the Professor spawns his batch of motes every 14 -28 minutes, most often around the 22 - 24 minute mark. Thisincludes 3 or 4 stacks of one or two motes each. All motes areavailable, in an even distribution, including the mostvaluable Mote of Fire and Mote of Air.
To see if the spawn has occured, you have to keep opening andclosing the vendor trade window. You don't see the new stuffuntil you re-open the trade window after the re-spawn occurs.
My routine is to keep track of the re-spawn times for each ofthese categories (since they are the main gold makers). Then Iconcentrate my efforts on checking the vendors repeatedly,around the time the next re-spawn is due. If I'm payingattention, I can get a large share of everything of value thatcomes up for sale, even if there's a lot of competition.
Here's an example of how I keep track:
10:18 Lhara herbs
10:26 Professor motes
10:31 Professor gems
10:41 Lhara herbs
10:48 Professor motes
And so on.
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Hot or Not
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The other big part of this technique is to make sure you knowwhat's worth buying, and what you should avoid.
Below is a complete list of what comes up for sale on thesetwo vendors, in their major categories. I've listed thevendor's price (without reputation discounts), maximumquantity that will spawn at any one time, and the typicalprice you can sell for in the auction house.
You can buy practically anything you see and make a profit.But the big winners to focus on are obvious: Fel Lotus, BlackLotus, Ghost Mushroom, Thick Clefthoof Leather, EnchantedLeather, and all the Motes. Best of all are the rare gems,Nightseye, Noble Topaz, and Living Ruby, but they appear onlya couple of times a day.
Items to avoid include most of the leathers, Khadgar'sWhisker, Liferoot, and the "Lesser" and "Super" level potions(the "Superiors" are good buys).
Herbs to buy:
- Fel Lotus, 4g (2): sells for 25g - 30g
- Nightmare Vine, 50s (1): sells for 1.5g - 2g
- Black Lotus, 40s (2): sells for 9g - 12g
- Netherbloom, 40s (2): sells for 1.5g - 2.5g
- Ancient Lichen, 30s (2): sells for 1g - 2g
- Ragveil, 24s (3): sells for 60s - 80s
- Terocone, 20s (3): sells for 1g
- Ghost Mushroom, 15s (4): sells for 1.5g - 2.5g
- Mountain Silversage, 6s (2): sells for 80s - 1g
- Golden Sansam, 4s (3): sells for 1g
- Dreamfoil, 4s (3): sells for 70s - 1g
- Wild Steelbloom, 2s (4): sells for 40s - 70s
- Kingsblood, 1s20 (4): sells for 8s - 15s
Herbs to avoid:
- Mana Thistle, 1g (2): sells for 1g
- Khadgar's Whisker, 7s: sells for 5s
- Liferoot, 3s (4): sells for 3s - 6s
- Bruiseweed, 1s (4): hard to sell
- Mageroyal, 80c (4): hard to sell
- Earthroot, 80c (4): hard to sell
Leathers to buy:
- Thick Clefthoof Leather, 30s (3): sells for 3g - 4g
- Enchanted Leather, 20s (2): sells for 5g - 8g
Leathers to avoid:
- Heavy Knothide Leather, 2.5g (2): sells for 2.5g
- Knothide Leather, 50s (3): sells for 30s - 50s
- Rugged Leather, 20s (4)
- Thick Leather, 12s (4)
- Heavy Leather, 6s (4)
- Medium Leather, 2s (5)
Note about leather: the auction house deposits for leather arequite high, so you stand to lose significant gold if your itemsdon't sell. Mostly not worth the risk, in my opinion.
Motes to buy:
- Mote of Earth, 16s (2): sells for 25s - 40s
- Mote of Fire, 16s (2): sells for 2g - 3g
- Mote of Water, 16s (2): sells for --> 1.5g+
- Mote of Life, 16s (2): sells for --> 90s
- Mote of Mana, 16s (2): sells for --> 1.5g
- Mote of Air, 16s (2): sells for
- Mote of Shadow, 16s (2): sells for
Gems to buy:
- Nightseye, 12g (1): sells for 35g - 45g
- Living Ruby, 12g (1): sells for 45g - 50g
- Noble Topaz, 12g (1): sells for 35g - 50g
Scrolls:
I won't take up space with a full list of the Scrollsavailable from the Professor. You can buy and sell ALL of themfor profit, but it can be a bit of a nightmare to manage theinventory and auction process, since there are so many. I onlyrecommend trading in scrolls if you are on a relatively lowbudget (the scroll prices are all in the 1.5s - 6s range), andyou are willing to put in a significant effort to jump-startyour gold-making efforts.
Also, consider buying scrolls at the Darkmoon Faire to helpyour leveling characters. You can easily lay in a stock thatwill carry you from month to month between Faire events. Likestat foods (see Secret Warcraft #24), the buffs you get fromscrolls can be a BIG time saver when you are leveling andquesting.
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Step By Step
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Working the Darkmoon Faire vendors is a simple operation toset up.
First, find out when the Darkmoon Faire is in season. You willsee NPC's wandering in the major cities with a quest thatsends you to the Faire when it's on, but you can plan ahead bychecking the Events Calendar at the official Blizzard World ofWarcraft website:
Next, create an alt character that you can leave parkedpermanently at the Faire. This takes no time at all for theGoldshire and Thunderbluff events. Just make a level 1 Humanor a level 1 Tauren, and run them straight to the fair. Noneed to bother with any leveling at all.
Now send your chosen alt some seed money and a couple of cheapbags. I recommend sending 20g if you can afford it, but youcan do something useful with as little as 5g. For bags, justget a couple of 8-slot or 10-slot bags on the auction house,they will be less than 50s each. Your alts can pick up thisstuff at the mailbox outside the Inn in Goldshire, or at amailbox inside Thunderbluff.
And then get to work! Park your alt in front of the ExoticGoods vendor tent, and start querying Lhara and the Professor.Make note of the spawn times once you see it happen.
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Bonus tip: if you aren't constantly checking the vendors, youmay miss the spawn event, because other players will snap upthe desirable items and you'll never see them. However, youwill normally be able to see that it has happened, becausethere will be some left-over (undesirable) items from thelatest spawn. If there weren't any Liferoots or Earthrootslast time you checked, and now there are... the spawn has justpassed.
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You will soon have the spawn timer pattern sorted out,following the details I have given you above. Now just makesure you keep checking each vendor at the right times, buy thegood stuff, mail it to your auction house banker character(s),and watch the gold flow in :)
Be sure to act fast with that right-click when you see thebest items pop up. They tend to sell within moments ofspawning. Consider yourself very lucky if you don't haveseveral competitors standing around ready to buy.
The usual principles of smart auction house selling apply.Know your prices, use AH selling best practices (limitquantities, make your lots stand out from the competition),and be patient if current prices are lower than they shouldbe.
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Another bonus tip: (this applies anytime you are working withvendors, anywhere in the game)... if you haven't set up withenough bag space, and you find yourself looking at a Fel Lotusbut no room in your inventory to buy it: just sell something(anything!) to the vendor, then immediately buy the item youwant. You will have plenty of time later (as long as you DON'Tlogout first) to clear some bag space, and use the "buyback"tab on the Vendor window to get the item you sold back. Thereis no price penalty for doing this, you'll buy the item backfor exactly the same price you sold it to the vendor.
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There you go, you now have detailed knowledge that 99.9% ofWarcraft players have no clue about. Use it! I highlyrecommend making the Darkmoon Faire part of your regular WoWroutine, unless you have a level 70 and you are doing dailyquests, primal and mat farming to raise gold.
The best approach is to do this kind of vendor camping whileyou are busy doing something else. While you can easily make200 gold or more in a day, that actual hourly rate is likelygoing to average out at only about 20g per hour.
For reference, here's what I got in two 4-hour shifts from oneserver today (auction house profit shown in brackets):
- 8 Fel Lotus (160g)
- 14 Black Lotus (84g)
- 13 Ragveil (6g)
- 28 Ghost Mushroom (42g)
- 34 Wild Steelbloom (17g)
- 10 Mountain Silversage (9g)
- 8 Nightmare Vine (8g)
- 28 Golden Sansam (25g)
- 31 Dreamfoil (22g)
- 7 Netherbloom (11g)
- 15 Terocone (12g)
- 13 Ancient Lichen (13g)
- 15 Mote of Fire (30g)
- 9 Mote of Air (16g)
- 12 Mote of Water (20g)
- 12 Mote of Shadow (18g)
- 10 Mote of Mana (13g)
- 5 Mote of Life (5g)
- 8 Mote of Earth (2g)
- 12 Thick Clefthoof Leather (30g)
- 5 Enchanted Leather (22g)
- 1 Living Ruby (30g)
- 1 Nightseye (25g)
- 1 Noble Topaz (25g)
That adds up to 640 gold in one day. Try that for seven daysin a row!
