Fortune Favors

Long story short: WowMatrix is essentially dead.

Oh, they’re still puttering along.  I even see an updated addon from time to time.  But after some major addon hosts got tired of WowMatrix harvesting things on their sites without giving them the opportunity for add revenue, clickbacks, or even a “Thank you very much for letting us be in ur base, stealin ur bandwidth!” … well, they cut Wowmatrix off.

Problem is, I’ve gotten very used to how much time an Addon manager saves.  If you find a good one it will not only check your current addons for updates (a lifesaver after any major patch) but help you find and try out new ones.

So I went to Curse.com (one of the sites that cut WowMatrix off, interestingly enough) to try out their own client.  It’s worth noting that the Mac version is still in beta and that’s what I’m using, so this is all subject to change.  It’s also worth noting that when I started up the Curse Client it threw me into a demo of their “Premium” service. As I’m a cheapskate you’ll find out about the non-premium version when this one expires.

First, let’s recap with a quick look at WoWMatrix’s window.

Not the prettiest, and if an addon had 36 million components it listed all of them, but it worked.  I assumed Curse’s client would have a similar setup.

Augh, where did all of my addons go?  WowMatrix would at least show an addon even if it didn’t recognize them!  … Oh, wait … they’ve put them into a separate tab.

Panic attack averted, and replaced by minor annoyance.  Apparently Curse didn’t know if an addon named ImmersionRP meant that it was an addon named ImmersionRP.  … OK.  One button click in this window clears out most of the issues.  My current setup still hasn’t fixed Carbonite or PowerAuras yet, mostly because I’m not just a cheapskate but lazy as well and I don’t want to have to redo my preferences for those (or in the case of PowerAuras, export & import my settings).

OK, next step is to look for new Addons by going to that “Find an Addon” tab.  Doing so results in …. absolutely nothing.  Why?  Because I don’t have my updated list of available addons, of course!  One more button click and I can search away to my heart’s content.

Ah, much better.

Until my “Premium” service expires and it potentially all stinks again.  I’ll let you know when that happens.

Warning: this one's a little geeky.

I got hooked on WoW from the moment I made my first character.  I found the game to be a visual treat with an easy to use interface.

… and now my screen looks nothing like it did back then.  I have systematically replaced a good portion of the user interface (UI) by downloading addons that helped my experience in some way, and from what I’ve seen there are people who’ve gone even further than me when it comes to redoing how you interact with the game.

So… here’s some of my favorite improvements.  All of these are free, and most are available through WoWMatrix.com.  If you can’t get them there, Curse.com has them.

• Auctioneer: My first addon ever, and still used almost every day to help bring in the big bucks.  If your system can’t handle it you can always try AuctionLite, but I’ve found Auctioneer is the one that has the features I use.
• FuBar: Totally pointless by itself, FuBar allows you to use an entire subset of addons that are placed in small horizontal bars at the top and bottom of your screen.  (You can move and/or turn off the bars if you need to.)  Any addon name that ends with “Fu” probably uses FuBar.  Speaking of which…
• PerformanceFu: System seems to be going slow?  Wondering if it’s latency, lag, or just TOO MANY ADDONS installed? (*cough*)  This one measures what’s going on and can occasionally speed things up for you.  At the very least it’ll tell you which addons are the system resource hogs.
• GarbageFu: Puts a new button on every vendor’s window that allows you to sell ALL your grey items in one click.  Also, if your bags are getting full you can shift-click to get rid of the cheapest grey item in your inventory to free up some space.
• Omen: Threat management is a must, even more important than who’s doing the most DPS.  While I’ve abandoned my DPS meter completely I still like to make sure I’m the biggest threat when tanking and not the biggest threat when doing anything else.  Omen let’s me know if I’m doing it wrong before someone who isn’t supposed to be the meat shield becomes the meat shield.
• AuldLangSyneFu: Tells you how many friends & guildmembers are online, as well as other information.  I don’t gnow how I ever GMed without it, but I find it’s useful even on my characters that are in other guilds.
• Bartender: This got installed when trying out another addon which I ended up despising, but Bartender is awesome once you get past the “What the heck why are all my buttons in the middle of the screen?!” moment.  True, it takes some configuring to get it the way you want it, but with that reorganization I was able to make my UI much more intuitive.  (That means I die less, and when playing a healer that means everyone else dies less too.)
• Power Auras: Notification system (mana low, mana high, rage high, health of player X is low, debuff on mob X has worn off, etc.) is one of the ones that requires a higher level of geekiness.  After installing it it you bring up it’s configuration window by typing /powa (as in:” I have it.”).  Even then it might take a bit or a lot to get used to it, but fortunately you can import settings made by others and some people managed to pave the way for us so you can look at what they did and modify it to make your own.
• Carbonite: Tells you where to go to complete quests, shows unexplored areas of the map, shows more in your minimap than you really should be able to see, allows easy transfer of friends lists between alts, and a few other features too.  This used to be an addon you had to pay for, but now it’s free and has replaced two other addons of mine (QuestHelper & Cartographer, if you’re curious).  The settings that controll it are … almost more confusing than Power Auras.  However once you bang your head against the keyboard enough times to get it the way you like it (Warning: Get a spare keyboard if you really want to configure it using this method.  Preferrably someone else’s keyboard.) you’ll wonder how you played without it before.

Just some friendly advice for all the people I see nowadays starting up new guilds:

1. Don’t forget you have a life outside of the game. Running a guild is important, but it can fall apart so long as your real life doesn’t.  RL > WoW

2. Find members who are awesome and make them officers. Awesome officers can help hold the guild together and run it for you when you’re taking care of rule #1.  If everyone’s awesome, then make them all officers.

3. If a member is a drain on the guild (constant begging, leaching from the guild bank, annoying other members, blatantly breaking rules…) give them a 1 on 1 warning, then take action. This could be demotions or outright /gkicking them from the guild if the offense is serious enough.  Make no exceptions – those will be remembered as special treatment by other members of the guild.

4. Remember there are players not in your guild.  Refusing to give free Deadmines runs to non-guild members is one thing, but being a jerk to everyone reflects poorly on you and your guild.  You will always lose members through attrition, but you won’t be able to pick up new ones if you’ve acquired a reputation for trash talking, ninja looting, griefing, and so on.

5. Limit your rules to 5 things.  Your guild members will for the most part not be lawyers.  Don’t overcomplicate things. Rules that are hard to remember are also hard to follow.

…

… see what I did there?

This will probably be my last post in this series, at least for a while.  Like Part 2, it’s a collection of short snippets of advice.

• Don’t vendor your greys!  Well, OK, vendor 99.999% of them, but there are a few grey items that can actually sell in the AH – mostly level 15-16 shoulder armor, like the kind that drops in Deadmines.  Low level (20-30-ish) grey head armor can sell too, but I’ve had better luck with shoulders.
• If it’s white, try selling it at least once.  You never know.
• Keep quests in mind!  Silver bars sell faster in stacks of 3, because there’s a gnome in IF that asks for 3 silver bars as part of a quest.  Even if someone else is selling a stack of 20 silver bars for a smaller price per bar than your stack of 3, people are more likely to buy yours because the out of pocket expense could still be higher for theirs.
• Remember how many times you’ve posted something.  Reposting an item once or twice makes sense, but if you keep seeing the auction expire you might as well vendor or disenchant the item and save on your AH deposits.
• To that end, be careful with quest items.  They might sell for a lot if they’re not soulbound, but if their only use is “Quest” then Blizz may have made sure it has a high enough drop rate to make it worthless.  maybe not, but be cautious.
• Fish.  That’s right, I said fish.  According to some it’s one of the most inane, boring professions in the game, and that’s a good idea to promote.  Some of those fish are also mats for Alchemy, and the more players who think fishing is dull, the less competition and more demand you’ll have for those Oily Blackmouth (or whatever else) you keep catching.  Just look the fish up on WowWiki after you catch it.  If it can be turned into something that will give someone a decent buff, then there’s a demand for it in the AH.
• Keep holidays in mind.  Every Winter Veil the price of small eggs and wool cloth goes through the roof.  Why?  Eggnog, cookies, and outfits.  Sure, people could just farm the mats themselves, but they’d rather be raiding.  Their convenience is your profit.

So there you go.  I’ll add more if I think of them, and if you have a few ideas feel free to add them in the comments.

Heya!  I’m putting off my morning medication just long enough to type this up.  Hopefully it’ll remain coherent.

In Part I I told you to install Auctioneer and start using that to scan the Auction House on a regular basis to keep up to date on the prices of … well … everything.  It was a long post in my opinion, and to make up for it I shall dispense this post’s advice in the form of bullet points.

• Pick a bank alt to run your auctions.  It’s nice being able to unload all my marketable  items any time there’s a mailbox nearby, and psychologically it’s a good way to save money – can’t spend it if it’s out of sight, out of mind, right?  No need for the bank alt to be a lvl 1 created just for that, either.  Just pick whichever alt you already have that you haven’t bothered to play with for a while.
• Pick one or two tradeskill categories.  Go through them daily (or more often than that if you’re saving for something big) and buy everything priced under 50% value (Auctioneer will tell you the % – it even color codes it!) for the purpouse of reselling at a profit.
• Careful, though!  Some items, even priced far below market value, just don’t sell often.  That’s why you only pick two tradeskills – you’ll quickly get a good sense for what will and won’t sell.  I’m looking at YOU, Black Whelp Scale!
• Beware of bulk – yours and others.  If someone just posted 5,000 Copper Bars to the AH then they’ve officially flooded the market.  Go ahead and buy some if they’re a good deal, but don’t think you’ll be able to resell them the same day.  Just hold onto them for a while first to let the market calm down.  Likewise, if YOU post 5,000 Copper Bars to the AH, you can expect to see most of those come back to you – less the deposit fee the AH charged you, of course.
• People who play twinks, as a rule of thumb, tend to have a lot of gold handy.  Searching for blue BoE gear in the level 17-19 range (or 27-29, or 37-39…) might net you a bargain, but be careful not to jack the price up too high when reselling.

There you go, a few more tips.  I’ll write more later, but first I think I’m going to finish leveling up Splat’s fishing.  Seriously, do you see what Deviate Fish sell for in the AH?

Well, contrary to what some might think after reading that last post of mine, I have not in fact abandoned Fortune Favors for an RP server.  In fact, my lack of posting here has been due partially to my leveling of two new alts in the guild (I rather like McSplat, my new hunter), and partially due to the fact that I’ve been sick for a week now.

Really sick.

Party wipe because I had a coughing fit at the wrong time, sick.

Codeine cough syrup sick.

McDonald’s was wrong, I’m not lovin’ it.  Maybe it’s just because I made the mistake of taking my first dose on an empty stomach…. nevermind.  Let’s get on topic before it kicks in and things get out of hand.

First, let’s get some things out of the way:

• I do not give gold to beggars.
• I do not beg for gold.
• I do not endorse the purchase of gold for real-world currency.  Well, maybe Zimbabwe currency, but only because it would be like paying for something with a rapidly melting ice cube.  I want those gold farmers/sellers to squirm.
• “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” – Lao Tzu

So… here’s how I make money in WoW without even doing dailies.  I’ll probably divide this into multiple parts, because it’s a lot of tips and frankly this site could use the extra traffic.

The first step is to get Auctioneer.  No mater what your professions are, what level you are, or what class you play, you can make a mint with this addon.  I use WowMatrix to install, manage, and update all of my addons, but if you prefer to do so you can find it at Curse.com too.

Auctioneer is not like most addons, in that it doesn’t start working for you “out of the box.”  That’s enough to turn most users away, but it’s really only one button-click to get it ready.

The problem is that every server is its own isolated economy.  The price of Wool Cloth on one server doesn’t mean it’ll sell for the same price on another server, or even for the other faction on YOUR server.

To figure out what’s what, the first thing you need to do is head to the nearest AH and talk to the auctioneer.  You’ll notice the interface is a little different, with some DVD control-like buttons at the top.  Hit the “Play” button to start a scan, then go watch TV, make a sandwich, do your homework, tell your parents you love them, or something else that’s meaningful.  Most of my scans take 10-15 minutes to complete, depending on how many things are in the AH.

Once you’ve done that Auctioneer is ready to go!  Of course the more data Auctioneer has the more accurate it’ll be, so I re-scan every day.  You should at least re-scan every week, if not every couple of days, just to stay current.  Certain holidays will see sharp spikes in prices for particular items and you’ll want to stay on top of that.

Now that you’re done scanning look down at the bottom for the last tab on the right.  The “Appraiser” tab is where you go to unload anything and everything you don’t need to keep on you.  I have enough tips about this one section to fill two, maybe three posts, but for starters you can get by just by using the recommended prices that Auctioneer throws in there for you.

That’s right, you never have to guess at a price again.  Auctioneer looks at what that item is selling for and gives you a price that might not be the lowest but is very likely to sell.  Won’t work for everything (scrolls are hard to sell these days, for example), but my ore, leather, and cloth almost always sell.

I think that’s enough to get you started, at least.  Next time I’ll either talk about professions or how to play the AH like a stock baron, either of which is a lot easier now that you’ve got a great addon to do the number crunching so you don’t have to.

Looking for something to do while the server’s down?  Tired of waiting for your favorite webcomic* to update?  Well you could always do some real work around the house … eheh, let’s move on before my wife looks over my shoulder and reads this.

Why not start a blog?  They’re easy, free, and can be very fun with very little effort.

But Splat,I don’t have a blog!

Then make one, silly!  There are plenty of free blog providers out there that can get you started with almost no muss or fuss.  I won’t begin to list all of them here, but some of my favorites are:

• Vox – Everything you need is built in, but it’s still simple.
  
• Blogger – Owned by Google
  
• WordPress – Runs the same software that manages this site
  

I’ve used all of these at one point or another and while I’ve since moved on to self-hosting, I think they’re still good services.

I don’t know what to say!

Write about your class.  (Paladins are awesome.)  Write about what you did recently.  (Dinged to 80 last night, Rhonin mailed me some fireworks to celebrate.)  Write responses to things other people have said.  If you find yourself talking about a subject for more than 5 minutes on Vent or in game, you could probably make it into a blog post with little to no effort.

No one will read it anyway.

I will, if you send me a link.  I’ll even link to it here if it’s relatively kid/work-safe (see Rule 5).  And you’ll be surprised at how many people will find your blog through Google searches or perhaps when they do a search to see who’s linking to them.  (Remember when I mentioned posting responses to what others say?)

Still seems like too much work.  Can’t I just post on this blog?

Let’s talk.

*Is probably not your favorite webcomic.

One of the things I do when not playing WoW (say, on a Tuesday … or when I’m scanning the AH…) is read blogs – it’s actually how I get a good deal of my information, since I’m too cheap to pay for cable, and there’s more than one good WoW oriented site out there.

The problem is, some of them update very infrequently while others update like 20 times a day.  How do you keep track of that without keeping all of your favorite sites open and spamming refresh?  Why with an RSS Aggregator, of course.

A what?

OK, so it’s a big fancy name.  A simpler, yet longer name would be “Web site or application that checks all your favorite websites for updates so you don’t have to.”  There are some you have to pay for, but my two favorites are free.

If you sign up now for a Bloglines or Google Reader account, you can start “subscribing” to any website with a little icon like this somewhere on the page or even (on some web browsers) in the address bar.  The process is actually quite easy, though if you get stuck there’s one or two tutorials already out there on the web.

Once you’ve done that Bloglines or Google Reader (whichever you picked) will check those sites on a regular basis to see if they’ve updated  If they have anything new you’ll see their name in bold on the left hand side of your browser window.  If they don’t … well, then you don’t even need to waste your time checking those sites, do you?

The only problem I’ve found is that with all the time Bloglines and Google Reader can save you, you’ll find yourself looking for more sites to which you can subscribe!  Mind if I suggest a few?

• WoW Insider – where I go for Warcraft news.
• BigRedKitty – OP know-it-all (in a good way) Hunter blog
• ISheepThings.com – Mage Blog
• Big Bear Butt – Feral Druid Blog
• Resto 4 Life – Resto Druid Blog

It should be noted that I don’t read all of these myself, but wanted to make sure you had a variety to pick from.  Surf at your own risk.  Find a blog that you think is worth adding?  Post it in a comment below!