Greedy Goblin

Friday, November 19, 2010

1750 borean leathers???

Tobold is leveling LW. He wrote that "that means farming 1750 mobs in Northrend to max leatherworking. Isn't that a bit much? Especially when Wrath of the Lich King isn't the most recent expansion any more, there are naturally less mobs killed in Northrend. Then leatherworking could become a serious treadmill in the 400 to 450 region."

That statement is just silly. To illuminate its silliness, let me share you one of the funniest economist experiment: the researcher ask random guy "How much could you put to your savings account every month if you wanted to?". Then he asks "How much could you spend on repaying new loans?". The two numbers shall obviously be the same as both means paying a monthly value. Yet the random guys claim to be capable to pay back 2-3x more loans than they can put to savings. No doubt that the banks are profitable and the people are poor.

This case if we would ask Tobold "Would you farm 1750 borean leathers to sell them on the AH?", he would scream "HELL NO!!!". Yet he is ready to farm them for himself instead of buying them in the AH.

There are two separate questions here to answer:
  1. Do I want to spend X gold on leveling LW?
  2. Is farming leather for gold is an effective way for me to make gold (compared to alternatives)?
X is the price of 1750 borean leathers. It does not matter if you later farm it yourself, you still spent this gold on LW (opportunity cost). Now the answer of the question is different for everyone, depending on their wealth and priorities. But the question must be asked from himself before making the choice. So the market price of leather must be checked, X calculated, the question asked and answered!

The second question on the other hand is completely unrelated. If the answer is yes, you shall farm leather whenever you have less than 5K gold savings. If the answer is no, you shall never farm leather. The proper form of the question is: "I want to make 100G now. What would be the best way to make it?". Answer it, do it. If you need more gold, ask again.

If farming leather would be a terrible idea, then farming leather for yourself is an equally terrible idea. If you answered yes to question 1, then you should just find the most effective way to get the gold for the leathers. It's most probably your usual goldmaking way. If it's not farming leather, yet you start farm now, since "it's for myself", you are a moron!

53 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post, you have spoken about this principle before but this hammers it home.

I don't get the experiment though; can you explain it?

Also -- is there a reason you choose this time for new posts to show up?

You obviously write them in advance; a few hours earlier would be a lot more convenient for me (and probably many US-nighttime readers) and doesn't seem like it would impact Europe much.

Anonymous said...

What if leather is cheap but there is not enough supply (that is a lot of leather)?

Kaptcha said...

"Yet the random guys claim to be cpable to pay back 2-3x more loans than they can put to savings."

Uh?! That sounds new to me. Do you have a source, or how do you know?

Yaggle said...

There is a larger question here that Tobold did not explicitly ask, but I think is obvious when discussing this topic: When they make it quicker to level 70-80, should they also shrink the treadmill for leveling up professions? Should they lower 1750 to 1500, or 1200, or some other number for the amount of borean leather needed? I give the same answer I always give for making anything easier. I say a loud "NO", because they already made so many other people gather 1750. Why is this bad? Because Blizzard sets a precedence, and has set a pattern where they are training players to wait to accomplish things because they know it will always be easier if they wait. Why should I accomplish anything now when I know it will be easier in a year, and easier still a year after that? Wouldn't that make me a moron if I did it now instead of save a hundred dollars or more on subscription fees and wait several months when it will be easier and faster?

Anonymous said...

Just occurred to me, one of the reasons people think farming is more effective than buying off the auction house is lack of confidence.

They understand opportunity-cost but they think that they won't be able to sell THEIR leather for current market value. So if they farm it its different. Their home-grown borean leather is worth less gold than the variety of borean leather they sell in the super market... I mean... auction house.

It sounds silly, but look at it this way. Its commonly taught that the way to sell things is by heavily undercutting. Or that's the way I hear people usually explain the auction house and that's what I thought for an embarrassingly long time. If the layman thinks this means undercutting the rock bottom of the market...

Ranguvar said...

I agree that the "experiment" could use a little clarification -- at least, for me.

Unknown said...

Your comparison to savings vs. loans is different, because loans are a debt that accumulates the longer you spend on them. The pros of putting more towards loans far outweighs the pros of adding to your savings, which is why people will allocate more for loans. You don't even have to think about it, which is why you'll get that answer from almost every person you ask. Also, the question being answered is more "what are you WILLING to put away", rather than what they CAN put away. I don't really see how it's funny to illuminate how people will make the smart choice in finance, other than them being tricked by the question.

Also, the difference in farming for yourself and farming for the AH is that you're not losing any gold, while on the other hand someone could flood the market and prevent you from from getting good prices, or other factors. Yes, you might lose POTENTIAL gold by farming, but there is no risk of it backfiring.

You also seem to be making two different comparisons and calling them the same thing:
- Farming for yourself vs. Farming for AH
- Farming for yourself vs. Buying from AH.

Anonymous said...

Couple of points that should be taken into consideration: there might not be 1750 borean leathers available on the AH, and if there are, buying them will probably drive the price up a lot.
There may be other side-benefits to farming mobs for leather, such as gold, trash, greens etc.
Anyway, still a good post - we all need to be reminded of opportunity cost every now and again :)

Squishalot said...

See, this are the type of blog that earned you your reputation, and that I (and possibly others) would hope you return to more often.

@ first post: "Also -- is there a reason you choose this time for new posts to show up?

You obviously write them in advance; a few hours earlier would be a lot more convenient for me (and probably many US-nighttime readers) and doesn't seem like it would impact Europe much."


Gevlon has to moderate comments, so it doesn't really make that much difference whether you read it before you sleep or when you wake up, unless you just want 'first' bragging rights. Having said that, it loads at 5 in the evening for me, which is why I generally get in fairly early.

Anonymous said...

I'm no economist but seems to me better never to put more money into paying of loans. If inflation is low, then you usually have a low interest. If inflation is high your effective debt is descresing. Put your savings (liquidity) into investments instead which yealds more money then you are acctually loosing on the loan.

Anonymous said...

@Yaggle every crafting profession get's easier with a new expansion because you can cut off the expensive recipes and start with the cheap new recipes well before you reach the maximum skill level for that expansion.

one must be on a pretty bad server if there aren't 1750 borean leathers avaible. i'm not saying there is that much on one day and it probably isn't the smartest to buy it all in one day, but when you decided you want to level LW it isn't to hard to buy out all cheap leather for two weeks and than there should be plenty of borean.

Riryoku said...

It actually narrows down to motivation. If I don't have the gold to powerlevel a profession, and even if I did have the gold I can't find the mats on the AH anyway, I might aswell go ahead and level the required gathering skill myself.
I could also put the leather on AH but then I'd have the gold (to level a profession) instead of a maxed out profession and the capability to make gold in an easier fashion then running around skinning mobs/mining veins/gathering herbs.
But you're right, Tobold is a Moron, as it's obvious he plans to use Leatherworking in Cataclysm, he should only level it to 425 now as it is likely that the Cataclysm leveling range will be 425-525.

chewy said...

Excellent post, succinctly gets the message across.

However, I will add that it is difficult to accurately forecast the opportunity cost, whereas grinding cost is fairly easy to forecast. As one of your other contributors has highlighted, the fear that in a given time frame the outcome might not be the same (i.e you may not be able to make enough money or there isn't sufficient supply) is what probably drives the grinding.

Big Heals said...

I think Tobold is questioning the design decisions that Blizzard makes expecting most leather workers to be skinners.

Especially with the recent news that XP requirements are reduced for 70-80. The number of mobs killed during a typical leveling experience in Northrend will not provide enough leather to complete the Northrend leather working skill ups.

This means blizzard's design was to require extra farming (bots rejoice) as a requirement to skill up a profession. This design isn't rewarding.

It's a decent observation about the design of the game.

I think they should make skilling up easier, and pattern hunting harder. There's not much reward in the making 15 silk headbands just to disenchant them all. Not the mention killing enough mobs to collect the silk. Combine easier skill ups with BOP patterns and you could make the professions a more rewarding past time.

Andru said...

It's a nice post. I know that for you it's as much noise as 'give us blood elf porn' but this is what I want to see from Gevlon.


Also, that experiment with the loans and the savings sounds interesting. Where can I read more about it?

Tazar said...

1750 borean leather is a number. You know you want that much. Still you can ask question to you every 100, 200, 300 leathers. Is it worth buying next 100 leathers from AH or is it better to farm them.

Or you can spam trade / ask AH seller to provide amount you need for you.

madscorpion said...

Several points:

If we're talking strictly finance (as in the real world), it is always a good idea to use other people's money than your own. Thus, people and companies will try to finance through debt till their level of solvency before turning to equity. The risk is taken with other people's money. In the case of savings, you're giving your money to other people to use, thus putting your own money at risk (which is more of a case with the latest financial farces going on). Still, a good example to pull the attention to your real intent: opportunity cost.

The problem with leveling anything at the tail end of an expansion is that the market is shrunk.

If you need 1750 leather, it's highly probable (at least on my server) that you'll be lucky if you can find 1/3 of it on the AH. And they'll be priced way above what would be a normal price for it.

The reverse is true too. If you want to earn money through ah in ways other than arbitrage, there's not enough market for your products, nobody buys enough to make you xxxx gold.

Case in point: Since most people have stopped playing till Dec 7 on my server, it's near impossible to find a JC. I happen to be one. Naturally i raised my cutting prices. Law of supply & demand, etc. Guess what, those people needing a cut didnt like the new prices and they prefer going without gems than with. You might argue a new supply & demand has formed but no, since i stopped cutting, trying to force the market up, seeing i've become a monopoly.

Short: In a shrunk market, the laws of normal economics get skewed and the small variations that shouldnt prove a theory wrong start becoming significant.

Anonymous said...

@Big Heals
You mean, just like the pace of levelling is a lot faster than the pace of levelling any other gathering profession ?

Ðesolate said...

You set
X = Leather cost
Y = usual g/h by your common strategy
Z = amount of leather farmed per hour

X * Z > Y
Farm leather
ca. X * Z = Y
Farm leather (If your usual gold strategy suffers from DR (AH). Farming does not)
X * Z < Y
Buy it from the AH

Well yes there is some space for variations but it´s quite clear.

"Yet the random guys claim to be cpable to pay back 2-3x more loans than they can put to savings."
Yes that´s why leasing came up. It´s one of the most silly things in the world as long as you aren´t a cooperation who can make out some benefits in taxes etc.
And that´s why people get more and more debts without thinking. Take kredit cards, most funding and also payment by instalments.

Xenxu said...

@2nd anon:

then you buy over time, while making more gold doing more profitable things than farming in the mean time.

If you "have to level right now", then you suffer like the rest of the M & S.

Anonymous said...

@"Not enough supply": If there aren't enough goods on the AH at a price you want to pay, then a quick "WTB , paying X each" usually turns up several sellers. Failing that, try "Looking to hire a skinner to farm some leather, paying X each". You'd be surprised how eager people are to become wage slaves, even in a virtual game.

@"Lack of confidence": The vast majority of people don't understand opportunity cost. If they farm something themselves, they think it's "free" because they never see any gold change hands.

Horpner Sneed said...

Another interesting study I heard about showed another bit of irrational behavior: when given the choice between paying extra money towards a high-interest loan, or using that some money to pay off a low-interest loan completely, quiz-takers always chose the more expensive choice of paying off the smaller, low-interest loan.

Here's an expert moron who does the correct analysis, and then recommends the wrong course of action! http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/ManageDebt/WhichDebtShouldYouPayOffFirst.aspx

First Post Anonymous said...

@squishalot:

It is not that I care about 'bragging rights;' it is that I care about getting into the conversation before it is half over. If I don't read/comment before i sleep, anything new I might want to say has a good chance of getting lost.

No comments yet from Gevlon... maybe he is 'defecting' today? Probably not just humorous idea. Scales are uneven anyways; he has more incentive to cooperate.

Gevlon said...

@First post anonymous: the post appears 7:00 AM for me. So I can instantly check comments when I get to my workplace (7:45). If the post would arrive earlier, I couldn't moderate the comments anyway. I can't turn moderation off due to the huge troll population.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous If inflation is low, then you usually have a low interest.

Not necessarily. If you took out a loan when inflation was high, but inflation has dropped since then, you're better off paying the loan.

Looking at inflation is more or less irrelevant. Looking at your loan rate vs savings rate is a better way to evaluate if you should pay off loans or invest.

Also, don't underestimate the psychological/emotional factor of not having loans. Some people value being debt free higher than being rich.

Unknown said...

Lack of supply is not an argument indeed.

When certain very profitable cobalt items where about to be nerfed in patch 3.0.8, I had hired hordes of cobalt miners for 40-50g/stack.

The scale of the operation resulted in some of them earning enough money for their Mechano Hog's and few days of non-stop smelting and crafting.

Meanwhile, the AH had only few stacks of cobalt for sale most of time.

Safe and instant sale in huge ammounts without the risk of losing AH deposits do wonders in heads of some people.

First Post Anonymous said...

Gevlon, that makes sense -- but what does it matter to you if it comes online at 3:00AM and you moderate anything from 3-7 then?

Jumble of comments is not preferable, is that it?

Anonymous said...

Tons of free leather in Sholazar Basin

John Newhouse said...

@Gev: About the posting time. I have to agree with anonymous. IF it would be 5:00 or 6:00, it would be 23:00 or midnight for Eastern, allowing us to comment before going to bed. They would not be moderated faster, but there would be more of them earlier.

The Gnome of Zurich said...

Yaggle:

1750 borean leathers can typically be bought within a few days right now for less than 2k gold. (I fairly often am able to buy that many to make hvy -> fur -> leg armors at one shot for 50-75s ea, or around 1000-1300g total).

Come cataclysm, nobody is goingg to be farming borean leather like that. The price will probably go up, and the ah will not be regularly stocked. Right now, a botter or skinning farmer can be bloody sure that if s/he loads the ah with 50-60s leather, that it will all sell to people like me making leg armors.

In cata, the demand for borean leather will be limited to leveling gear, 70-79 twinks and LW levelers. So nobody is going to farm it all day the way many do today. They will be farming savage leather. Which means that if you are leveling LW, you will need to take a long time to buy it and probably pay a lot more, or farm it yourself. So it's not really the same thing. It will be much harder to come by that many borean leather in cata than it is now. Just as it's much harder to come by knothide leather today than it was back in TBC when it typically sold for 30-50s. Now, it's lucky to find for 75s-1g, and usually it's more like 1.5-2g ea.

Fortunately, blizzard will, like they always do, nerf this requirement. Most of that borean leather goes into making heavy leather which gets used in large quantities for the higher level items needed to get from 425-450. Most of those skillup points cost between 60 and 100 borean leather (as well as some other things). But in Cata, those skillups can be had from converting savage scraps to savage leather, and savage leather to heavy savage leather, using many many fewer leathers.

So the LW path won't need 1750 borean anymore. it will need somewhere around 500, comparable to how much knothide or rugged leather we need now. Similarly, in TBC, you needed a ton more knothide than you do today.

The Gnome of Zurich said...

Horpner, I read your link, and the article writer clearly endorses the correct course of action, even as far as recommending not paying off the 3.75% debt at all (when it was written you could easily beat that in investments).

Here merely notes (correctly) the psychological advantage of paying off a smaller loan first. That said, I tend to agree with the idea that we should train ourselves to measure our success in savings/loan payoff as "positive changes of net worth", rather than "debts paid off completely" So paying 5,000 on the 40k debt is somewhat more valuable than paying off the 5k debt, because you've saved more in interest due. And I have to admit, I've always thought the "debt-snowball" idea was bass-ackwards, because it encourages a wrong-headed view of success and measuring your problem.

Brian's problem is not that he has 3 bills, it's that he's 56k in the hole. Having 2 bills and being 51k in the hole is not a noticeable improvement over still having 3 bills and being 51k in the hole.


That said, it's not fair to say this expert gave the wrong advice. He recommended exactly the right thing. He just didn't shit on the other idea as much as you think he should have.

Yaggle said...

A few people mentioned that when a new expansion comes out, it is easier to level up the professions to the previous max. because the new expansion recipes are craftable at (old max - 25) basically. This is not what I have any complaints about. This makes sense to me because people are still using mats, just using mats from the new zones instead of the old ones. It doesn't seem like any sort of 'welfare', it seems like good design by Blizzard to give a player a choice on which type of sacrifice they want to make. However if Blizzard makes lvl 375-425 items require less materials, then I must protest due to reasons in my above post.
I also want to point out that those materials(leathers for example) from Cataclysm that you would use to level your crafting profession from 425 to 450 are probably going to also sell very well on the auction house as well as being valuable for leveling your profession above 450, so it's not necessarily a better idea than acquiring those borean leathers. You know, I do not believe there is a simple answer to this because it depends on the price of borean leather on your auction house as well as if you have any reason to be killing mobs that can be skinned for borean leathers other than acquiring those leathers. You've got to form an estimate in your mind of the time-cost and collateral benefits of farming them yourself in the most efficient manner possible and weigh that against buying them with gold and using that time for something else, and then make the best decision.

Wilson said...

@Horpner-

If you are so eager to call someone a "moron" that you can't be bothered to properly read the article, what does this say about you?

"For me, I would still go with the highest-interest method -- it simply puts more cash in your pocket in the end."

The Gnome of Zurich said...

Agreed yaggle. If I remember the last expansion correctly, a lot of the BC crafting materials dove in price right before and after the xpack, so it made a lot of sense to use them to level what you could instead of the very high priced new mats.

Although usually, if you were leveling a prof right in the beginning of wrath, you already had it at 375 or close.

That said, while borean leather might be very cheap in early cata, I would expect it to rise as stocks finally sell off, and it might not be the best idea to use it even though it's cheap, as it will probably be worth more in a few months and could be worth storing rather than blowing on unprofitable skillups. The best thing to do is get to 450 now for any profession that you want to level to max early in cata, while mats are cheap and still plentiful. You could easily acquire enough leather to hit 450 *and* a few guild bank tabs worth of speculative stock at reasonable prices over a couple weeks, if you start buying now.

Warcraftecon said...

Good post. It was a nice way to explain opportunity cost in a different way.

arthasdklol said...

I can farm leathers faster than people can supply them at the "market value" I need 1700 what ever of em ffs. Lets not forget all the lower tiers where prices are even more inflated and messed up.

Andru said...

@Horpner

Uh...

The article clearly advises paying up the highest-interest loan first...and even advises not paying the lowest interest loan and putting the money in a high-yield savings account.

I don't get it. Why is he a moron?

Nils said...

Yet the random guys claim to be capable to pay back 2-3x more loans than they can put to savings.

In fact, that random guy is too smart for your question. Imagining the two possibilities, he already included liquidity and unknown future risks in his answer.

Anonymous said...

Just some math for Tobold:

I just used a calculator:

1750/20 = 87.5
87.5 x 15 (approximate price of one stack of borean)
=1312.5

assuming it takes 20 seconds on average to kill each mob (due to respawn and travelling time between mobs) and you get one leather from each mob then 20x1750 = 35000 (this is in seconds)
35000/60 = 583.3333333333333
583.3333333333333/60=
9.722222222
so roughly 10 hours
If you can make more than 100g per hour then using professions is faster. I pity you if you can't make more than 100 per hour.

Anonymous said...

@Nils,

I think I misunderstood your comment. If the guy is worried about liquidity would he not be better to put more money into savings where it will be liquid in the event of an emergency? Paying off a loan doesn't improve liquidity does it?

Same with unknown future risk. If something catastrophic should happen in the future would he not be better off with money in savings than a paid off loan?

Not saying its catagorically better to save than pay off a loan, just that I don't think the "random" guy was working the way you stated. In my opinion, people tend to way over estimate how much of a loan they can handle.

Anonymous said...

Why even level up LWing to 450 when you can level it up to 425, then finish the grind in Cata? Invariably, right before the expansion, Blizz puts in easier recipes to help level up. Often, these recipes are something you'll need for later crafting (ie: bolts of fabric).

Cyrell said...

So Tobold is a moron for getting the leather himself by skinning it? Did I misunderstand your post?

I'm sorry, but I don't see how someone is a moron by wanting to play the game. Maybe he likes killing mobs and skinning them? Some people might like spending a few hours grinding mobs. I'm not surprised, frankly. Tobold comes from an older generation of gamers who probably spent a significant amount of time on MUDs and as one of these gamers, I also don't mind going out and getting my own herbs, eternals, cloth or whatever.

I LIKE being in the world. I LIKE killing other players be they bots or people trying to do their quests. I LIKE killing tons of mobs because they drop good gold and sometimes greens and blues that I can sell or disenchant.

You LIKE sitting in the auction house and running to the mailbox every five minutes. I DON'T, but I certainly wouldn't call you a moron.

And if the world would just be made up of goblins who expected leather to magically appear in the auction house then where would the leather come from?

Oh right... then it would be more "cost effective" to have all the goblins paying people to farm the leather for them... I see...

Farming Fun said...

@Cyrell:

This post assumes farming is not a fun activity, and farming is not your goal in playing the game.

If it is, by all means farm the leather... However, you probably will get more gold from mining than skinning, so probably best to farm that than the leather... unless specifically farming animals for leather is fun for you...

Personally, slaughtering 1750 easy mobs never was my favorite thing, but if the easy, simple, repetitive task makes you enjoy gaming, go for it!

...Although if you like easy, simple, repetitive tasks, specifically skinning, why weren't you farming the leather in the first place?

...You only like long, repetitive tasks when that task is the most time consuming option (out of many possible options) of getting what you want?


One of Gevlon's main, recurring points seems to be that having that preference, the preference to do the long repetitive farm (because you "enjoy" getting your own materials), is a moronic preference.

If you like the gathering, why aren't you spending your time gathering when you don't have a specific need? If you like getting the materials and doing other things with them, why not get them in the most efficient way possible?

Justkiddingmate said...

This thread is probably speaking in general, but if its aimed at leatherworking specifically its a very wrong example.

Leveling leatherworking from 370-430 is FREE or at most 1g per skillup, infact I earned a little bit of cash in the process by just >>> vendorselling <<< crafted stuff.

If I could actually be bothered with it I could have DE-ed stuff, and put the mats on AH in the form of scrolls or raw mats. Yes I know, lazy but Im preparing a lot of things for changes to come so time is against me atm so I take just a little profit but in return have my leatherworking skill up to the point now I can continue leveling it in cata when needed.

Reason is that at least on my realm 20 borean leather go below the threshold so often that vendorselling becomes profitable probably because its not as widely known as saronite ore vendorselling.

Cyrell said...

@ Farming Fun

Obviously, you're trolling from your name, but you bring up some valid points so I'll respond anyway.

Skinning is a higher risk activity than mining is. I'm more likely to meet another hostile player if I'm dismounted chain killing animals. Since I play on non-dead servers, I do often meet people while I kill and skin, therefore alleviating some of the "boredom".

It's obvious you're making fun, because you still can't understand what's "fun" about killing 1750 animals and therefore you feel the need to mock the person who does. Well my point is, I don't see what's fun about paying $15 a month to stand around in the same 10 yards of space using two channels to accomplish the same thing. The difference between us is that I'm not going to mock you for it.

So I'm the guy you buy the leather from and you're the guy who doesn't leave Orgrimmar. That's fine the way it is, really. From my point of view, I got the better deal because I got 2000g all at once and also have a few hours of honor kills as well as the chance to "practice" my class, whether it's kiting skills, player vs player, efficient mana usage, or whatever. I'm also likely to come across some of the rare silver dragon mobs.

But like I said, I started playing computer games such as text based MUDs years ago, where you had to kill literally hundreds of millions of mobs to level up. Killing 1750 animals in comparison to that is a joke and no effort at all.

Cyrell said...

@ Farming Fun

If you like the gathering, why aren't you spending your time gathering when you don't have a specific need?

Of course, my skinner is in Northrend almost daily, keeping the auction house supplied. My miner is in Icecrown almost daily, keeping the auction house supplied. Same goes for my herbalist. Sometimes I also stealth next to a mining node and a herb for an hour or so to gank the Alliance trying to take that one. I have a lot of fun while I play, do you?

If you like getting the materials and doing other things with them, why not get them in the most efficient way possible?

Because maybe then I wouldn't see anything of the game apart from some "roleplaying" naked blood elf female bank alts or an undead in a pink dress with a top hat and a diamond tipped cane who has made WoW his personal gold tamagotchi?

Anonymous said...

Wow cant believe most people here are "morons" like how you like to say. First both questions dont have anything to do with eachother. They both are saying your going to buy your way to 450 LW.

Ive leveled every proffesion at least 2 times already for both horde and alliance and i never went to the ah to buy anything i farmed it all. And before you say im a moron for farming what else im i going to do stand around dala for hours running around like a good part of wow players. Or raid and kill the same boss for the 500th time.

What ever people want to do let them if they want to farm because they enjoy it like i do doesn't make them a M&S if you want to stand around doing nothing then good for you i could careless. And saying its dumb to farm for your self is just being a retard your not giving up gold because your going to waste your time doing something else gold isn't everything. anything you need in the game is there already just spend a little time looking for it.

Farming Fun said...

If you are farming anyways, saving 1750 to level up leatherworking makes perfect sense. No reason to sell 1750 leathers then buy them on the AH.

I got the impression that Tobold generally didn't farm and was going to go farm because he needed the leather -- that's what's silly.

If you have farming fun, it makes perfect sense to save the materials you need rather than sell them.

Eaten by a Grue said...

Cyrell,

You killed hundreds of millions of mobs in MUDs?

I hope you had good AOE.

Andru said...

Cyrell, you're being ridiculous.

If Tobold enjoyed farming leather, he wouldn't whine about having to farm leather to level up.

Ðesolate said...

If you go for straight benefit or gold/hour then farming is usually less effective (excluding rare stuff as BC-ore/bars on less populated faction/server).
If you want to integrate fun as a value to a discussion on effective earning, then you´re talking about another topic.

If it´s your fun to hack and slay through WoW than you´ll have my blessing, but I don´t have to think it´s intelligent or effective.

csdx said...

@Yaggle "Should they lower 1750 to 1500, or 1200, or some other number for the amount of borean leather needed? I give the same answer I always give for making anything easier. I say a loud "NO", because they already made so many other people gather 1750."
By that logic Blizzard should make it just as hard to grind 1-60 as it was in Classic WoW. But they don't, why? Because it isn't fun for people, new or rerolling to do it again, when all Blizzard's effort is directed at the endgame. So making things easier might set a precedent, but it's one people expect, because people know that the game is ephemeral and temporally sensitive. After all having a kingslayer title come cata will be devauled. Social convention already is there to make old content matter less, so why shouldn't blizzard de-epmahsize it as well. It merely caters to the popular sentiment and obviously is working for Blizzard to make money.

Horpner Sneed said...

Thanks for the correction on my link. I'm obviously the moron in this instance, not having read the conclusion carefully enough.