Greedy Goblin

Friday, July 3, 2009

A new challenge for making gold!

After 60 e-mails in only 24 hours the application is closed. I'll /roll for someone and contact him.

There are several great ideologists of the idea of the self-made man. Yet none of them could reach popularity among the public. The reason: they are so far from the common people in lifestyle and wealth that the people find their statements hypocrital at best and "finding excuses for crimes" at worst.

Once upon a time a French princess was informed that the peasants have no bread and hungry. "Let them eat cake!" - she responded, proving that she have no clue that "having no bread" is not a logistical error of the bakery but the sign of poverty beyond imagination. When someone like George Soros talk about solutions to the economy, the common people hear "Let you eat cake!"

My plan with this site was to prove that with work and brain you can reach anything in this game. I kind of succeeded. Too bad that by succeeding, I got so far from the targeted audience as I could. I mean I sit on 200K+ without making a single trade in a month and I raid the top content in a way that I don't even show up on nights that doesn't offer firstkill attempts of hard modes.

The reader could look up old posts, seeing how did I got from "having 8K in a suckguild" to "goldcap and do hardmodes". The reader could look up my experiments when I started some new character on a realm with no help and reached epic flyer cost in couple of weeks, less than 1-2 hours/week play.

The reader does not want to look up. The reader wants to read now. And what he reads looks like "let them eat cake". The rantings of a lazy millionaire who surely have no idea what life is.

The site slowly shifted out from a useful tool for people who want to be self made man to a meeting place of already rich goblins (and unchangeable goblin-haters). I get letters like "I already have triple goldcap, c'mon Gevlon, beat that". Is it bad to have a meeting place for us? Hell no. I love you and I am really happy that there are so many of us out there. Love? Happy? They sound so social! Does this site serves any purpose? Can it reach any "common" players to change his "I help friends because it feels good and everyone needs help" attitude into "I work for myself and others could do it too"?

And more fundamentally, can the effective blog be created at all? I mean if I earn money and bosskills, I consequently move away from the average, therefore become a stranger who "surely have no idea what's going on down here". On the other hand if I stay in the average by wasting my money on mounts and pets, all I could say is "do the very opposite I'm doing to be successful!". Great perspective.


Then the solution for the problem just hit me: I need real people's story for this site, to give a proof that money can be made. So here is the plan:
  1. You have not enough gold. You are not lazy and don't afraid of learning.
  2. You volunteer in a mail.
  3. I pick an applicant, mostly randomly, keeping it in mind that the story must be interesting to the people. So no "I want to reach goldcap before my buddy, please help reaching 15K/week from 12K/week" please.
  4. I roll a lvl1 on your realm/faction to see the prices.
  5. I give you advices how to make gold but don't do anything myself.
  6. You become rich with less than 30 mins/day work. In the first days you may have to farm seed money or reroll a profession or roll a DK alt or something to get a start, that's a one-time time investment. (I won't ask you to reroll a profession you need for PvP/raiding)
  7. The story gets here, to the blog, day by day.
So if you want gold, send a mail. Be noted that every communication we do, including mails and ingame chat can be used here on the blog, so if you don't want 2K people to see "how could you waste 1.2K on a dragon while you can't repair your stuff?!", don't apply.

If you know someone in need of gold, convince him to apply. So goblins of the world, this is your chance to get rid of "pls help making gold" friends. Instead of sending them to Hell, you can send them to a worse place: here!

You must be on an EU-English speaking realm and be able to be online in the afternoon-early evenings Paris time to apply, because I cannot meet you otherwise.


PS: I still love trolls. They are able to formulate the same nonsense that the other socials believe, who are smart enough to not tell it openly. The troll of yesterday said: "Gevlon, with your ideals, anyone that is new to the game should and would never progress. Then they would be constantly berated for not being the absolute best." Yes! Success only depend on luck and position. If you have no status (beginner), you have no other chance than the help of the "freindly heplfull ppl".

Well punk, I hope you stay to see how will an ordinary guy gains enough money for everything he may need in WoW without getting a single copper from anyone.

PS2: a bit personal comment, but also a message to all "can't do, impossible, need help" people: Steelbraker is so dead!

42 comments:

Khalindora said...

You must be on an EU-English speaking realm and be able to be online in the afternoon-early evenings Paris time to apply, because I cannot meet you otherwise.

Unfair! I'm on an EU-realm.. but it's a German speaking one. Mhmm, next project for me then... go re-roll on an English speaking one. :)

However I'm really really looking forward to your project. :)

Anonymous said...

Not a bad plan and surely an interesting one. You might consider restricting the level of an applicant to, say, 30, to reinforce the thesis that "everyone can do it".

And one more challenge for the future:

Get 2500+ rating in PVP.

(I can already hear a number of people saying "PVP balance is a joke, arenas are not about skill, yadda, yadda". Come on. That's for sissies.)

Anonymous said...

I must say that I am shocked by this development.

I had always penciled you as the evil goblin billionaire relaxing at his lavish country estate,with a room full of money, then waving $100 burning bills in your servant's faces as you mock them yelling "HAHA You are M&S, You are social, You fail at life."

The Altruistic Goblin? An oxy-moron I dare say.

I stopped playing WOW along time ago (early BC). The money situation seemed so different back then. I remember painstakingly searching the AH for Warlord Cards every day. The day I got someone to buy it for 250gold (which was ALOT of money back then) was the day I got an epic mount.

You should set yourself crazy goals just for the heck of it.
-Gain 10,000g in a week trading only in Cooking items (no mods allowed)
-Make 5,000g by selling items <5g
-Form a Goblin Trade Guild of Lvl 1 Alts
-AH monopoly? Find a medium demand market and purchase every single item and immediately x5 the price

Good Luck Gevlon

OT: Marie Antoinette never said "Let them eat cake" It's a common misnomer that roughly paraphrases the indifference of the French monarchy.

Eishen said...

Interesting try , it will be very useful for the rest of non-elegible mortals (EU..spanish speaking server, and late afternoon playuer) if you can keep periodic detailed accounts.

And most of all if you choose an "standard" probe, not a 30 lvl 10g-in-purse man but a common 80 with limited free time -by raid-attending hours or casual player -

zahorijs said...

Such a great idea! I would love to apply, because I think being part of this experiment would provide me with more valuable insight in skill of trading. But I'm already making 5k/week in glyph business and probably it will be much more interesting to see how you bring some one from zero to hero :)

Anonymous said...

Fun idea, you could be a consultant :)

Thunderhorns said...

Gevlon's blog helped me get what I want. Not so much because of his ideas, but because reading this blog was like a bonk on the head. I already understand business principles and apply them when managing my own money (Though I did take a bath in the stock market on too many startup gambles and high risk investments). Once I started using basic business principles and developed an AH strategy, I have a steady stream of gold coming in.

I'm not gold capped. But I've been able to buy the motorcyle I wanted and still have 11k gold sitting around in the bank while accumulating more every week. I havea bullet business going and a horde Argent Tourney pet business. I do the four Horde Champion Seal dailies and sell a pet every eight days for about 1200 profit on top of the 92 gold from the dailies. So 1934 profit every eight days for about 20 minutes a day work. My horde pet, my bullet business, and selling stuff here and there I pick I've got a nice 3k a week cash flow working about 20 minutes a day plus whatever time it takes me to buy ore and make bullets (maybe another 5 minutes every few days since I buy ton of ore when it is cheap and make a bunch of bullet boxes for sale during the week).

That's about all I want or need, since I don't have as much fun as Gevlon playing the mogul. I'm already in a small raiding guild and could be in a larger one if I felt like it since I'm a 10% player as in the top 10% of players. I won't say a 5% or 1% player, I don't think I'm that good. But definitely a 10% player and one of the top guys in my guild.

I'm just happy I found this blog. I should have already been applying business principles to WoW. I used to play the AH a little back pre-TBC days, but never did much in TBC. And I kind of went to sleep because money was so easy to make in WotlK. Now using business principles money is even easier to make.

I'm happy I found this wakeup call of a blog, so I stopped wasting my time thinking dailies were the only way to get the coin I needed. Now I have steady gold rolling in from minimal time investment and I can spend my time on the part of the game I truly enjoy: leveling alts and raiding.

I still help my friends too. You don't have to be a "goblin" to make good money. You just have to be smart about your gold accumulation and limit your wasteful spending. Just like you would do in real life if you're not a dumbshit when it come to finances.

Most people are poor because they're lazy and stupid, sometimes from socialization and sometimes just because they are. Smart money management makes life easier and less stressful. They should teach it in school.

Anonymous said...


Instead of sending them to Hell, you can send them to a worse place: here!


I can't express how much I like your writing style...

Can't wait o see those report :)

Anonymous said...

Great Idea Gevlon

DarkKnight said...

Hmm, I am actually quite tempted to send in an application. Just so I can go to a worse place than Hell ^^.
No, but more seriously:
I do meet all the requirements it seems and I am still thinking about starting to finally get some money flowing my way on the server where I raid on.
Such a shame that I am leaving for a 1.5 week vacation soon, so the timing is just off. Damn you, Gevlon. Why did you pick this week to ask for applications and not say, in 3 weeks! :)

@First Anonymous:
I could be mistaken, but I believe he already had 2500 rating, or at least very close to it.

DarkKnight said...

Oh, and gratz on Steelbreaker, Gevlon!

Gevlon said...

@Darkknight: no, I don't play Arena. It needs an closely cooperating group, and I don't like those. Raids are different. The other guy - as long as he knows his job - can be anyone, people can be replaced depending on attendance or gear. If 1 of the 5v5 team missing, no game. If he leaves, we can start building a team from zero. I don't want to depend on others.

You don't miss out on anything, there will be several rounds. After the first guy gets rich, comes the next.

LarĂ­sa said...

It's a brilliant idea! You'll be the Gordon Ramsey of goldmaking in WoW! I'm looking forward to read those straight-forward reports of your efforts to raise a businessman.

Honetstly I would be happy to apply for this, but I'm afraid I don't qualify due to my normally pretty late playing hours.

Would be cool though to meet online at some point before either of us quit the game.

I was thinking about rolling something at your server, a DK, whatever, just to say hi, but it seemed very much full at the moment, so I figured it wasn't possible.

but feel free to pop buy some day if you just want a one-time-only-event, mocking me a bit for my horrible skills in money managing!

cheers!

Anonymous said...

Point 1.

The difference between you and Queen Marie Antoinette is that she never had to earn a single coin in her entire life. She was perfectly logical in her statement, because she didn't forget how it was to start out, she never had to do it in a first place, so she couldn't possibly remember what she never knew in a first place.

Point 2.

WoW is not real life. While its played by real people, the rules of the game allow a great deal more opportunity and equality then real life ever will.

In real life, your birthright, your education, your starting capital, the state of the world, your choice of a job, luck - they all can make you or break you. getting a job in real life requires getting an interview and then convincing your prospective employer that they should hire you instead of a relative. NPC doesn't care who you are or where you come from - you do the job, you get payed.

AH doesn't care about your credit or your reputation and neither do its costumers. They don't need references or credit reports to purchase your listings. Even if you happen to have gained a great deal of notoriety on your server, enough to stop people from buying from you, selling is only a lvl 1 anonymous alt away.

I think it takes a special "talent" to be broke in World of Warcraft. Its all too easy, even when you work hard as well as smart, to be broke in real life.

Captain Parakeet said...

gev i think this is the correct way to appreach your blog, it had become less of a blog about money making and more about ranting about socials while i do agree with alot of what you say, many posts were simple whines of your beliefs.

that said
i apply, i play on the server daggerspine-eu, my character is named iololol its an I at the front, i play unguilded as i struggle to be part of guilds social circles, i wish to take part because the promise of learning is something that intrests me. if a mail is needed respond and i will give you a full length email.

Sponge said...

It is such a shame that I am on a US server but I am still very eager to read up on the success story of the winning applicant to learn how to analyze the market on my own server.

I have tried the glyph industry but even though I pretty much follow what you do, it appears the glyph market is very competitive on my server. Such a shame.

Great work on this blog!

Dechion said...

Unfortunately for me we are on different sides of the Atlantic.

Sounds like this will be an interesting event, both in game and as something to blog about.

I look forward to reading it.

Necronia said...

Shame, I'm going on holiday too, and really want to get some money made :(

Kohaku said...

Ohhhh.

Makes me sad that I don't play on an EU realm, but I can't wait to read up on your reports! Since you mentioned that you'll be doing several rounds of this, I'll be hopeful that one of the EU realms will have a market that seems similar to my server.

Will you be reporting to us about what you see from scanning the AH?

I'm looking forward to reading your strategies.

/bow

Kohaku

Carra said...

And just what is that guy going to do with all that gold? Once you've reached a certain point, there is no use in getting even more gold. And you reach that cap pretty soon...

Laudrim said...

While that's quite a good idea, I still think the even better way of proving somebody can go from zero to hero is without any direct outside help(that means no advices given by an already experienced goblin).

Shame a lot of the people that fall in the "zero" category would rather be handed welfare(by means of protips or otherwise) than actually looking up information for themselves, and actually learning from personal experience as opposed to applying customized tips.

One can only dream, huh?

Anonymous said...

I might pass this info on to my guild (social guild, some do put effort in though), i'd nominate myself but I'm doing rather well with money making right now so it would be a bit of a waste.

Still a social member might chuck a bit of a challenge at you, I'll link it on our forum, especially since alot of my guys don't know how to make money.

Anonymous said...

@Laudrim

I think there are alot of people who came here and are what you mentioned, I started reading this blog as a means to make more money rather than doing dailys.

Now I only do the Argent Tournement dailys since the pets sell for 2k each and they can be done per day in 20 mins, about 85% of my money nowerdays comes from the AH.

I think some people are scared to take that first step into the world of money making, even I started off making a small loss but since my funds have gone up so has my buying power, I'm making about 1-2k a day at the moment, I'm working on making that higher.

So i think anyone can do it, they just need to do the research and dabble in it a bit.

hermedes said...

Pallylord
Bronze dragon flight pve realm

Anonymous said...

"Gevlon, with your ideals, anyone that is new to the game should and would never progress. Then they would be constantly berated for not being the absolute best."

I should feel honored that you made a blog about my comment, but the mistake is that I wasn't referring to gold making. I was discussing what you have been whining about for the past week or two, Raiding.

So, "Punk", lets see you take a brand new M&S, pay for his right to raid in your guild, and see how well he does. Don't tell him how the fights work either. Just watch.

Helping him learn his rotations / new encounters would be cheating since he doesn't have any achievements.

vlad said...

i would love to see making the "from zero to hero" guy on the outnumbered faction side, where there already is 1 goblin on the glyphs and another on the gems, ans the consumable market is not as good as one would expect it to (for instance: Aerie Peak horde side)
PS: the pets give up to 200g/day from both sides

Whoosh said...

Oh, if only I was on an EU server! ^_^

Can't wait to see this one!

Wooly said...

Great idea! I was already hoping you'd start a new project sooner or later.

The idea of applying too crossed my mind, but neh, I rather watch from the sideline with this. I guess the participant will remain all but anonymous on his server, and I'm not social enough to be able to handle that much attention :)

I would love to see you try on my realm though. Reason being that I'm still wondering if my server/faction is just too overcrowded with other goblins that it limits me to my 2k/week using only enchanting with the time and resources available. On the other hand, I've still not taken the time to level inscription, and I'm probably not doing myself a favor with that.

Anyway, looking forward to reading the updates about his/her progress.

Good luck!

Wooly said...

P.S. Congratulations on the Steelbreaker kill. I have taken the liberty to watch the stats and you're clearly one of the better healers of the guild. I'm guessing you don't mind paying your 5k/w, but even without the payment they should be happy to have you.

Omestes said...

Sounds like a good idea, as much as I love to hate the flavorful fat of your libertarian rantings, the only reason I came here was for the meat.

As to your comment, one someone else's comment; your making the same mistake they are, claiming that all your need for success is skill, ego, and a heaping helping of individualism. These help, perhaps a lot, but there still is a degree of luck and environment involved.

Carl said...

"Gevlon, with your ideals, anyone that is new to the game should and would never progress. Then they would be constantly berated for not being the absolute best."

This troll should realize that this is exactly how the real world works.

As someone who just dinged 80 (adulthood), he would have no raid achievements (work experience) and no companies (guilds) would want to hire him.

Of course, the real world has a system to help new adults through that. There are government student employment programs, universities that give you higher degrees to show you're not M&S.

Wow doesn't, and that's where social networking comes in. You make friends with people and join a raiding guild at the social rank, filling in raid spots if they happen to have attendance problems. Slowly over time you obtain your skills, achievements, experience, until you either become accepted as a raider, or prove to the guild that you're M&S and never get a raid spot again.

The real world works the same way. Having a strong skillset and resume won't land you a dream job immediately. Your life becomes easier if you always happen to know someone who knows someone who has a job opening at his company.

Of course, if you're M&S, your social network is limited to only those people who can help you get hired at McDonald's.

Molinu said...

Not a bad idea. Best of luck to you. I'd apply myself, but I've already made myself a minor goblin.

Sindarn said...

Gevlon, do you verify if you've received the email? Terribly scared mine isn't received :)

Zanathos said...

Interesting idea, sort of like a sequel to the original theme of the blog, look forward to seeing how it works out.

Also, the wikipedia article you linked about Marie Antoinette seemed to indicate she probably didn't actually say her famous quote (which would make it like most famous quotes: misattributed or completely fabricated.)

Wayne said...

I'm glad you've found a new project for the site. I was hoping it would be to branch out into other profs to find ways to make money in those, but this is good too. What's funny is that you were saying how no one would go back and read, which is exactly what I did a few weeks ago. Went back about 3 months and read all the posts til now.

Anonymous said...

@Lupius

That's great and all, but in your life lesson, you didn't even bother to read the context of the post.

I was simply responding to his "LFM easy 5 man heroic, please link your fall of naxx achievement" comment.

Besides the fact that a brain-dead monkey with no arms could easily do H-VH, if everyone did what he suggested we do, then new 80's would never progress.

"Well, then they would have friends that would take them through raids. Networking skills, hur dur!"

That's great if were talking pre-bc instances that one 80 can do, but everyone in the 25 man - excluding the original 1 or 2 that you're friends with - would also have to be friends with you. According to your ideals, anyhow.

Lastly, even IF you everyone in the raid suddenly became your friend and let you in, wouldn't that render the whole linking achievements thing useless?

Just some food for thought.

Inb4 delete.

Townes said...

It's interesting that you mention readers could look up what you've done, but they want to read NOW. There's some truth to that, though I've been known to go back through months of your blog for tips.

I first came here from a link on the "need more rage" blog, which I think is also blogspot. That blog, like many, keeps a bunch of links to particularly noteworthy posts in a table/column on the right.

I think that you have a lot of posts that deserve such links - and would click on them if you changed your page layout to include them.

Orgalia said...

This is a great challenge Gevlon. I am sure it will go well and am looking forward to reading the posts. I just started a similar challenge for myself. My gf and I are starting from 1 and leveling up on a new server and I made a few banks to become a goblin on the server. Starting slow but with some of your tips I have already started off decently. Working on the glyph business atm.

Thunderhorns said...

Its all too easy, even when you work hard as well as smart, to be broke in real life.

An out and out lie.

Making it in the real world is very easy if you don't spend beyond your means and work hard and smart.

You don't have to be a billionaire to be successful and self-sufficient. It takes a special level of stupidity and/or laziness to be broke and without in America.

Unknown said...

@Anonymous:
You should set yourself crazy goals just for the heck of it.
...
-Make 5,000g by selling items <5g

Uhm, that't not exactly a challenge. Since most poor people are the buyers, you will find that you will hit the cap faster by selling sub-5g items.
Ever been to a "Dollar Store?" Same idea applies. They have low-cost, high profit margin items there. They will gladly sell you an item for $1 that they bought for 15 cents. They can sell this without people thinking twice about it.

Tip of the day:
Don't try to make your money by selling items >1000g. It takes weeks to move those kind of items. Like selling cars. Try selling soda instead - people dont think twice about spending $1 on a soda (which is 5 cents in packaging and 3 cents in beverage content).

OK, so theres a happy middle. Dont sell "Freshly baked bread".

Also, consider the market for the item. Poor don't buy bling - green gems won't cut it (get it? what a pun...).

Try rolling an alt. Think of the things you need along the way. Write them down. What was hard to find in the auction house? Chances are, those things might sell like hot-cakes if you provide them and noone else is.

Tonus said...

Omestes: "As to your comment, one someone else's comment; your making the same mistake they are, claiming that all your need for success is skill, ego, and a heaping helping of individualism. These help, perhaps a lot, but there still is a degree of luck and environment involved."

I agree that luck and external factors can play a role in an individual's success, they often do not play as much of a role as people like to think. People who are successful at something (basic example, Gevlon's success at making gold in WoW) don't just have vision and drive and ambition and whatever other qualities make a successful person-- they also take into account those external factors and try to work around them or perhaps even make them work for them. They minimize the impact of luck and chance.

In the comments you may see people say that a specific item isn't selling well for them (example, inscription-related items). What Gevlon is trying to teach is that you have to search for and discover the opportunities that are specific to your server, and take advantage of them. Maybe it is inscriptions. Maybe it is enchanting supplies. Or vendor-sold pets. Or maybe your server is so volatile that the best items to sell changes every couple of weeks.

Luck and external factors play their part, but you can minimize their impact significantly. Too many people give them a bigger impact by surrendering to them before they even try. "Oh, I cannot do this, I have no opportunity!" or "It's not worth it, when someone else will get the job instead." Instead of working to overcome environment and luck, they turn them into impenetrable barriers.

I think that the biggest factor in success is our own mind and our approach to life.

Unknown said...

Too bad you're not on a US server.

I'm curious what you think about "exploitation." I'm a social. Hardcore social. Trying to learn boundaries to not be abused. I'm intelligent and practiced in science, art, and math (not grammar or goblin). I've had a few folks explain to me that on wow, it's a game and everyone should be out for themselves.. so do so. From what I'm realizing were goblins better at networking socials, who can't understand my behavior (but have some small part of them that would like to woo a chick online or for some reason took pity on me). I've been reading your forums for the last 2 days and learning a lot about.. business, basically. Your explanations, faulty sometimes.. usually are packed with merit. They explain a lot of behaviors I've seen, but didn't want.. or couldn't put a finger on. It helps. I'm curious what your feeling of sexual exploitation in the game are. I'm very open about having a significant other and often relate I'll not take items if I think that someone giving me them because I'm a chick or reimburse them what I think the value of the item is. (feeling of owing something is prominent in those without "the goblin way.") Curious then.. if everything that someone who is stupid wants to give you is the best way to be? Thanks.

As a... thank you for listening... Let me share my favorite troll. My wow boyfriend, now lifemate used this prank in dealing with the "gold 1 plx." He'd open a trade window and put 1k gold in it. Then he'd made dinner, get a soda, or something else.. leaving the window open without clicking trade... and read the chat. Sometimes he'd afk offline and read the chat log (social programs).. later. It was interesting to see how much time that 1k chance was worth to some folks. He pretty much only had a chance if someone bumped the computer or other accident (never happened). It was free entertainment (his side) and gave him something to do while hitting the AH the next day. He didn't get yelled at, sometimes he got someone acknowledging the joke... was.. interesting to see that.