Greedy Goblin

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Morons of the week

At first a classic from Saint:


If you are a mage (or have a mage alt), you get used to be a portal whore of the whole server. But at lvl 2 (by Zerotorescue)?

He also sent me a picture with some genius bought out his glyphs for resale, but blurred out the name. I've already told, a picture that protect the identity of the M&S won't get here. Sara told us explicitly: "Yes, yes, show them no mercy! Give no pause to your attacks!"

My life is complete, I can now die in peace! A moron doesn't dare to explain his nonsense because of fear to get here (by Graylo):



Setra found someone who asked the most fundamental question on the trade chat:



Sometimes I agree with forum commenters. This time I agree that the opening post deserve the award of "Stupidest post of the day"


Manu is a kind supplier of French M&S. Now he had a hard task: how to translate spelling errors? Please also note that he continues his rant despite no answer.

- AREN'T u sick of selling glyphs for 10 gold ?
- YOUR really breaking my balls, peon. I put them at 30 gold minimum and they sell I dunno what's your problem
- you like crafting stuff to gain 5 gold ?
- LOOK BIG
- anyway you won't sell anything anymore I'm gonna destroy you and camp the AH until your sick of it
- i'll even sell at loss to show you that i can be as dumb as u, mister "10 gold glyphs"
- i hope your free this afternoon to relist your glyphs LOL
- you don't make money and have no ambition.


What do you do if you see someone spamming /trade for Glyph of Explosive shot for minutes? You go to the AH and buy one for him... for 300% profit: (by Will)

34 comments:

N said...

Excellent. I love getting hate tells. Lets me know my strategies are working. ^.^

Hey Gev, did that Engineering money-making guide ever happen? I was looking forward to it.

kalimah said...

i have been reading your blog everyday for the past year and i have followed your tactics down to the T on my server, i have been able to accumulate quite the fortune as well as quite the hate. now i have not gold capped such as yourself but im on my way. i cant help but laugh my ass off on your moron of the week posts. all i can say is hail to free markets and hail to free markets in wow. before i started reading your blog i was a MSer and now i would like to think of myself as a greedygoblin and a AH troll, i have found a whole new part of the game that i would have never thought existed. all i can say is thanks and keep up the good work

Iiene of Kul Tiras said...

Awesome!

More total retards that don't know the value of things.

And I don't mean the 'victims'. I mean the clowns sending you the pictures.

Yawn.

This shit is starting to get tedious. Hell.. I wish I had 2 gold for every retard that thought selling glyphs for 3 gold in a 20 gold market was a good idea.

Let's go down the list, shall we?

Image 1: Ok, this moron posts glyphs that COULD sell at higher prices at 5 gold. MORON! That's money on the table! Take it! Clearly, the answer to these dolts is to mercilessly undercut them. If an M%S drops the price to 5 gold? You drop it to 4 gold 90. Oh! I'm sorry! By 'M&S' I mean your loyal submitter.

Image 2: Can't even read it. Better quality control, please.

Image 3: I have no idea what is going on. But when some wanker claims to have ... and I quote... "Multiple degrees in Economics, Finance, and Banking" in an online game I don't need a crystal ball to figure out he's a tool.

Image 4: No context. Might have a valid point... might not. No idea.

Image 5: Another retard posting glyphs for well under market.

Image 6 Top image and bottom image don't match.

I have to deal with these people all the time. They undercut my glyphs by 30 gold only to be undercut by 10 silver 10 minutes later. Or... they just set their fallback price to 4 gold for the hell of it. You know... because that's what Andrew Carnegie would do.

Stop encouraging them! They're morons! They have no idea what they're doing.

I can't wait 'til tommorrow. Hell. I expect to be prominently displayed again. Probably for making profit amidst the sea of retards currently jacking the glyph market on my server.

Ooo. That might be newsworthy. But your not going to read about it here, are you? Because... you know... those are your loyal readers doing the jacking.

Anonymous said...

I will have to agree that some of the guys sending in the screenshots are the morons themselves.

You don't undercut to a few gold when the glyphs go for 30+ gold.

You gotta check how low your competition is willing to go. What if they give up on 20g?

It's the same trick when you get a world drop epic or one of those drake pets. You put it out for way way over what is sensible. Some moron might buy it. If it doesn't sell you drop the price slightly until it does.

Smeg said...

"Why have 5% of a 30g market when you can have 100% of a 7-10g market that is still profitable?"

profit is profit. when you own the market, then you can pad your margins.

you just don't get it: these are images of competitors moving in on someone elses' turf. you have to undercut to drive them away. hence the hate.

i found i got MORE sales the more i drop the price. You also attract the idiots who scan the AH and supposedly find these "underpriced" glyphs, hoover them all up and then can't unload them. That's always a great feeling. hook, line and sinker.

Matthew said...

Just like Smeg is saying, this is a great way to take control of a market. Liene is really missing the point of all of this, which is to make your competitor(s) surrender, give up, stop trying.

For example, a few weeks ago several people on my server were owning the Netherweave Bag market. They sold bags for 14g each despite the price of a stack of cloth being only 3-4g. I swept in there and made hundreds of bags, then sold them all for around 5-6g (to make a two gold profit or so). These guys were hysterical, they flooded my mailbox with even worse stuff than is shown here. They were incredibly angry that someone had come in and taken over their turf.

Yes, I COULD have tried to sell my bags near their prices--but I wouldn't have sold many. I've made more money in the long run, a higher profit, by selling cheaply--Wal-Mart does exactly the same thing in reality, for example. Wal-Mart sells items for low prices, and these sell FASTER and MORE OFTEN than the items of competing stores, who are forced to either: A, lower their prices; B, find some sort of 'niche' (i.e., establish themselves as a specialty store); or C, go out of business.

In WoW, because there's no way to customise items, the only options available are A and C. So after I sold my bags at this crazy price for about a week, my competitors--the guys originally selling the bags--totally gave up. They stopped trying to compete, because they (probably rightly) felt that making a 1-2 gold profit after undercutting me wasn't worth their time and effort.

Of course, as soon as they're gone, I immediately raise the prices of bags--and thus set my own prices. My bags now sell for 10g each, and while every now and then some random tailor sets out a couple of bags, I pretty much control the entire market for them.

Anonymous said...

Too many stupid people here... and they are the ones claiming to be goblins.

The last "Moron of the week" post. Gevlon claims the guy made 300% profit. The guy bought a glyph for 6 gold. sold it for 15 gold. Profit = 9 gold. that is only 150% profit.

Some goblin.


Next real moron of the week is the commenter Matthew and his post about walmart. Too bad he forgot all about the fact that walmart is also selling inferior quality products. This is the main reason they can sell cheaper and still make money.

In wow you cannot differentiate quality. All items are the same. So Matthews post is redundant as well as false.

Matthew said...

@Anonymous:

I did allude to, but not specifically mention (because I figured any sensible reader would automatically pick up on it) quality of items. Reread paragraphs 3 and 4. I distinctly stated that one option to compete with Wal-Mart would be to establish a 'specialty store'--i.e., one that sells SPECIAL products (i.e., perhaps higher-quality ones, perhaps more aesthetically-pleasing ones, perhaps ones a different colour--it could be anything).

Then I specifically mentioned that in WoW, we cannot customise items. My Netherweave Bag is exactly the same as anyone else's Netherweave Bag. That's not the case in reality; a shirt from Wal-Mart may not be as high-quality or SPECIAL as a shirt from Riccherio's.

So, no, I did not forget this point. In fact, I specifically made it--and pointed out that it couldn't happen in WoW, given WoW's lack of customisation of items. Perhaps instead of trolling as an anonymous poster and lobbing insults like an angry monkey, you should just read what I wrote in the first place.

Unknown said...

Dare I say good judgement Matthew. Forcing the other competitors out as soon as possible by sheer deep undercutting then raising once they've left is also the best strategy I found to do.

There used to be a nifty "cartel" running the entire gem market for my server, I rolled on in with gevlon's guidance in his posts and completely dominated every niche I went for.

Wooly said...

To bad I don't have screenshots of the biggest moron I ever met in the game. It was still in classic Wow, and I was leveling a female nightelf. While doing a group quest I got help from some guy, playing a female char himself(!), who immediately assumed I was a girl IRL because of my char being female. I played along for quite a while, even going on a virtual "leveling date" with him. All the time I had fun throwing hints around with him never getting it, while getting a nice amount of XP while being on /follow most of the time.

A long time after I finally explained to him that girlchar != IRL girl (which he should have known), I heard from someone from his new guild that this guy was actually married and his wife had a char in the same guild as him (could have happened afterward of course, but I doubt that).

Anonymous said...

Omg, the one in French is written so poorly. I personnaly have to think before I can read what he blabbers.

Anonymous said...

Yesterday, some guy in trade was buying Titansteel bars for 130g. That's 20g less than what the mats are worth and 30-40g less than what they sell for on the AH. When I asked, he said he had bought 150 bars so far; I couldn't believe so many people were selling to him.

On a different note, what do you think of selling crafted, ilevel 200 epics? A small market exists for them; some people want a quick way to gear alts without grinding badges. But I've found the margins can be low, and if it doesn't sell, you're out a lot of gold in the AH posting fee due their high vendor value.

manu said...

Yeah ! This is my second moron published on greedy ! \o/

LaminatedSmore said...

'Sometimes I agree with forum commenters. This time I agree that the opening post deserve the award of "Stupidest post of the day"'

Interestingly, as far as I can tell in Aion, you have a 10 auction/character limit. You also need a level 10 character to access the auction house.

Anonymous said...

@ Matthew

The problem with your post is that you say you made more profit but undercutting your competition by 8-9 gold. And in an attempt to support your claim that you wouldn't have made more gold if you had only undercut by 5 gold, you say that Walmart operates successfully on this principle of deep undercutting.

Which is bullshit. Because walmart carries different (quality) products then it's competitors.

Yaggle said...

I don't think the people selling glyphs cheap and in mass quantities are morons, but I do not think the people trying to sell fewer glyphs at much higher prices are morons, either. I think people are morons when they tell other people how they should play the game, including how they should run their business. Where does a person get off sending mail or posting a message saying how another seller should run his business, or do anything else, for that matter? That is why I love to see these screenshots, so we can all see who these Napoleon-complex bullies trying to get pushy through the Azeroth mail system really are.

Vlad aerie peak said...

oki, so hers how i dominate the market, each weekend i spend most of my ingame time buying herbs and making glyphs, now i just made 20x every glyph that i know and sells for over 7g (200+ glyphs) then i go to the auction huose and post them between 4 and 10g please, not i assume a worst case scenario- 4g, so
with 10g/stack of northrend herbs making 1 glyph costs me from 1,66g to 2,1g depending on the used parchment, lets make it an averange 2g, i just made 8k gold pure profit assuming worst case scenario, or 32k profit assuming your glyphs are at "estabilished 40g /each" and thats without counting the snowfall inks, im fine with my profits, so i fail to see a point why should i struggle to relist multiple glyphs just to "be fair" ill rather undercut to the point no one else will play the game and ill still get some profit.

Vlad aerie peak said...

so im making 1.142k- 4,5714k gold a day just from 1 day of crafting and relisting each 2 days (i post 10 of each glyph at a time)
as you can see im making more than i can spend (well already bought crafted epics and flying for alts and stuff like that)

now:
why should i put fare more effort (constatntly scanning the AH and relisting undercut glyphs) just to _maybe_ incrase the profit, if the current money making rate covers my needs ?

Anonymous said...

Why do people feel the need to lie so much on here?


Vlad Aerie stats that he makes 20 glyphs of everything he knows sells for over 200 gold. He then clarifies in brackets that he makes over 200 glyphs. For the sake of his argument lets put that as high as it can go and still be a 200 number (otherwise he would have said 300+ or 400+. 299.

Then, he says he posts then all for 4-10 gold. Wait.. if he knows they sell for over 7 gold why is he posting them for 4 gold? Or if he does post them for 4 gold why didn't he say he makes all the glyphs he knows sell for more then 4 gold?

But lets go with his numbers. 4-10 gold. if he sells all of them that is between 1196 and 2990 gold (actually it will be a bit less because of AH fees.. but again w/e I'll fudge it in his favor).

Then, in his last paragraph,he says that he makes 1,142k- 4,5714k a day. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't mean to add that "k" at the end of each number because there is no way he is making 1 142 000+ a day.

Still even if you remove that k he added on there is still now way he is making anywhere close to 4514 gold a day when by his own admission he is only crafting enough glyphs to make at most 2990 gold.

My theory, Vlad Aerie is a M+S pretending to be a goblin. TO bad real goblins can do basic math.

Anonymous said...

@Yaggle: Funnier still is scanning through the comments on a 'Morons of the Week' post to catch the repeat offenses of said trolls (liene of Kul Tiras) grasping for their 2mins of fame from flaming.

In a de-regularized free market if your not competitive your out, deal with it.

Someone who sells crafted Engi ammo for less then the price of mats cannot sustain this for long if at all.

Finally, gotta love the air-heads that mention 'money on the table' and 'this way everyone is happy' in their pathetic attempts at economic cyber bullying. Blatant lies, when in fact they are the single victims of my low price, whilst everyone else is victimized by their exagerated prices.

Jason said...

I wish I was on some of your guys's servers.

Undercutting and selling at a loss knows no bounds on my server. I've managed to build to about 40k in the past month, but my server is a classic case of too many cooks in the kitchen. Way, way too many sellers and not nearly enough buyers.

Glyphs get cut down to 50s-2g and any glyph you post is undercut by 2-3 people in less than 15 minutes.

Epic gems get cut down instantly at about the same rate.

I even ran a test to see how far I could dive the meta gem market, because it is so cheap to make them (~10g), I've driven the price down from 70geach to 30geach in an attempt to make up the lost profit in sheer quantity. But wait, people refuse to leave the market. With 40k gold, I can flood for a long time, but they are like cockroaches.

I could use some tips. I have a lot of major sellers in my friends list and list my stuff when they log off (when possible), but I seriously don't have time to camp the AH.

It almost seems like the best gold/hour on my server is herbing which is a scary thought.

Anonymous said...

"My theory, Vlad Aerie is a M+S pretending to be a goblin. TO bad real goblins can do basic math."

-Vlad Aerie stats that he makes 20 glyphs of everything he knows sells for over 200 gold-

Reread what he wrote. And try basic english comprehension (and math). In most places, what he said would be read "I make 20 of each glyph that sells for over 7g. That is 200 or more glyphs of different types."


He also assumes the 'worst' of a 4g glyph. 200 glyphs*20*2g= 8000.

Now lets do some basic math.

Let's say vlad makes his normal glyphs. He sells 7(of 10) of 150 different glyphs (out of his possible 200). He makes 6g profit (sell for 8-2g cost).

7*150*6= 6300.

It is indeed possible, although he to reach those numbers he has a very very profitable server.

Lesson learned: If your going to troll, atleast do a good job.

-Ty

Anonymous said...

What int he world kind of servers are you guys on where you can sell 5+ of 100 types of glyphs every day?

I must be on the worst server in history, cause there is no possible way to sell that many glyphs on my server even if you camp 24/7.

Iiene of Kul Tiras said...

Dude:

'Let's say vlad makes his normal glyphs. He sells 7(of 10) of 150 different glyphs (out of his possible 200). He makes 6g profit (sell for 8-2g cost)."

That is an absurd and ludicrous assumption. You just DON'T have that kind of sell through with glyphs.

The principal reason is the low post cost... 15 to 60 silver. Learn the industry, please.

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...

"My theory, Vlad Aerie is a M+S pretending to be a goblin. TO bad real goblins can do basic math."

-Vlad Aerie stats that he makes 20 glyphs of everything he knows sells for over 200 gold-

Reread what he wrote. And try basic english comprehension (and math). In most places, what he said would be read "I make 20 of each glyph that sells for over 7g. That is 200 or more glyphs of different types.""


This anonymous is even dumber then the Vlad Aerie guy. And he speaks of English comprehension and math? Yet he misconstrues what is actually written by Vlad Aerie. And even if Vlad Aerie did poorly convey what he meant as this anonymous poster believes, the math still doesn't add up, since the numbers go absurdly higher then even Vlad claimed.

Either way... Vlad Aerie is lying.

Sadly this site is full of M+S readers that try to pretend they are successful goblins.. when really they have less then no clue what they are talking about.

Vlad aerie peak said...

i hope some of you will read this:
i make 20 glyphs of Each glyphs that i know that will sell (200 different glyphs), each week (7 days)
now, i just made 4000 glyphs
they usually sell in 5 days however lets assume it takes the whole week to sell them,
cost 1,66-2,1g avg. 2g
minimum profit 2g (4-2=2)
maximum profit 8g (10-2=8)
so, over 7 days i can make from 8k gold (20x200x2g)to 32k gold (20x200x8g)
lets divide 8k-32k by 7 we get:
(8k /7) 1142- (32k /7) 4571

thats what i ment.

Anonymous said...

"Yet he misconstrues what is actually written by Vlad Aerie"

Please point out exactly what i misconstrued and how you know i interpreted it wrong. You are the person who read he was selling glyphs for 200+ gold a piece (damn unlikely).


"That is an absurd and ludicrous assumption. You just DON'T have that kind of sell through with glyphs."

Yes, yes it is. But with the numbers posted, it is mathematically possible. That was all I pointed out. I didn't say that he would, or if it was possible to sell that many. Stop trying to read deeper meaning into what i said. All i did was prove that the person claiming what Vlad said was impossible, was wrong.

Notice i said "to reach those numbesr he would need a very very profitable server". All i proved was a math error.

-Ty

Anonymous said...

"i hope some of you will read this:
-snip-
that is what i ment."

What do you know, my failed interpretation matches his retyped post.


-Ty

Anonymous said...

Sorry for a third post.


And before anyone bothers, yes my math was still off. but it was closer than "lol 299g urlying."

The numbers Vlad posted are extremely lucky, I am not debating that. But his math works out.

(vlad you better watch out, that server economy is pretty tempting! /steal )

Anonymous said...

That guy on the forums saying that people should be limited to 50 auctions each is pretty funny.

He doesn't realise that limiting the supply like that would reduce competition and increase the price of the things he thinks are already overpriced.

Heywood Djiblomi said...

Iiene of Kul Tiras said...
"The principal reason is the low post cost... 15 to 60 silver. Learn the industry, please."

The low post cost... 15 to 60 copper. Learn the Auction House, please.

Tdubs036 said...

"Get out of the Classroom and into the Real World"

He says in a computer game ..... what a idiot!

Unknown said...

people are selling useful glyphs for under 1g and you know it is just temporary I buy them out and repost them the next day for 5g.

@ Liene,

If you cant handle the undercutters maybe you need to move out of the market like the rest of the celeb's of the week...

Hydra said...

The Glyph of Explosive Shot was my favorite. I us to do the same thing.

Thank you for the good laugh.