Explain this strategy.

[SherbertLand]

I used to spend days on end farming my own mats so I could undercut everyone. Ahh the days of being young and rude. Sorry to everyone I did that to

How is it rude to compete in a market? Do people consider that rude now?

[Edc]

Really, how much gold do you pay for your game time? I pay 14.99 a month for my play time, do we really wanna start this discussion? No, we don't. I pay no gold for my mats, other than the miniscule cost of a vial or some paper for inscription. My time is my own to spend.

Completely irrelevant, just because you farm your own mats doesn't mean they suddenly become worthless. Selling your flasks below the break even price is costing you profit.

And like someone else mentioned, time is the only limited resource in this game, everything else is available in high enough supply to keep things running, how you use your time is up to you, but farming your own mats is not the most effective way to make gold, by far.

[Blackmist]

Maybe they just don't care about playing the AH.

Maybe they've thought about how to make money, and decided that farming the mats and selling them is OK for the time they have and the gold they need. The number of flask users does not scale up to meet the number of flask sellers. There's a limited amount you all can sell each week. He's cutting into your market, and not spending any gold to get there.

By selling enough flasks below AH mats cost, he'll bring down the cost of flasks and mats.

Or maybe he's just botting, so it's not costing him any time. Most of your herb suppliers are botters in any case. Without them, you'd make very little profit on flasks.

[Kantoro]

Completely irrelevant, just because you farm your own mats doesn't mean they suddenly become worthless. Selling your flasks below the break even price is costing you profit.

And like someone else mentioned, time is the only limited resource in this game, everything else is available in high enough supply to keep things running, how you use your time is up to you, but farming your own mats is not the most effective way to make gold, by far.

Agreed. the mats do not suddenly become worthtless, however, I do not have an initial investment. I don't pay that 40g a stack of herbs, so that cost isn't cut out of my end profit right off the top. I get my herbs from my farms. NOT by flying around pandaria and herbing. To harvest 10 exalted farms, it takes me a little less than an hour. This nets me about 12-15 stacks of herbs a day, plus 2 stacks of Golden Lotus. I can then turn them into flasks if I wish and a bare minimum of cost (the cost of a vial). I can then sell them at whatever price I want. I choose to undercut, becuz quite frankly I always get my money. I don't have to worry about profit margin like people who 'farm' the AH for their mats. Say you pay 40g for a stack of herbs and you end up turning a 200g profit out of that stack, you made 5 times your initial investment, not bad. I sell my flasks and turn a 1000 times profit, becuz all I spent was the pittance for the flask. So please don't tell me it isn't efficient when I crush your profit margin by 100 fold or more. I will take an hours worth of work for vastly superior profit margin. You can go on and spend money on those herbs off the auction house, it wastes your money and makes me money cuz ppl buy the herbs I don't use. I make 5k gold every single day with an hours worth of work. Might not seem like much to some, but for me, it is just fine.

[Regen]

Really, how much gold do you pay for your game time? I pay 14.99 a month for my play time, do we really wanna start this discussion? No, we don't. I pay no gold for my mats, other than the miniscule cost of a vial or some paper for inscription. My time is my own to spend.

Say your RL job (assuming you don't have one by the fact you didn't already count this) pays $10/hour and gold typically sells for $1/1k so every 6 minutes you'd need to make 1k to make it "worth" more than just working your real job and buying gold. Though that's against the rules. Time has a real value

I could also go into a term known as "opportunity cost" but I'm tired. So maybe later. Or google it.

[melodramocracy]

I used to spend days on end farming my own mats so I could undercut everyone. Ahh the days of being young and rude. Sorry to everyone I did that to

That's not being rude, that's capitalism. Nothing to apologize for.

---------- Post added 2013-05-03 at 09:26 AM ----------

wh...It sure as fuck is not zero. Do people that think like this have any concept of the value of time?

It's worth whatever he thinks it is.

The fact that he thinks it's lower than you might is kind of irrelevant. And if there indeed was a flat value of time, there'd be very little fluctuation in prices on things from one server to the next.

[Edc]

Agreed. the mats do not suddenly become worthtless, however, I do not have an initial investment. I don't pay that 40g a stack of herbs, so that cost isn't cut out of my end profit right off the top. I get my herbs from my farms. NOT by flying around pandaria and herbing. To harvest 10 exalted farms, it takes me a little less than an hour. This nets me about 12-15 stacks of herbs a day, plus 2 stacks of Golden Lotus. I can then turn them into flasks if I wish and a bare minimum of cost (the cost of a vial). I can then sell them at whatever price I want. I choose to undercut, becuz quite frankly I always get my money. I don't have to worry about profit margin like people who 'farm' the AH for their mats. Say you pay 40g for a stack of herbs and you end up turning a 200g profit out of that stack, you made 5 times your initial investment, not bad. I sell my flasks and turn a 1000 times profit, becuz all I spent was the pittance for the flask. So please don't tell me it isn't efficient when I crush your profit margin by 100 fold or more. I will take an hours worth of work for vastly superior profit margin. You can go on and spend money on those herbs off the auction house, it wastes your money and makes me money cuz ppl buy the herbs I don't use. I make 5k gold every single day with an hours worth of work. Might not seem like much to some, but for me, it is just fine.

Like I said, how you use your time is up to you, not someone else, the difference between your strategy and the one that AH "farmers" use is the amount of stacks going through it, you take 1 hour to produce 40 flasks, someone buying mats can make a hell of a lot more then 40 flasks in 1 hour, they usually don't buy herbs at the AH price either but have a supplier with a much lower price or frequent the AH to pick up the stacks posted by a botter for a minimum price.

[Kantoro]

Like I said, how you use your time is up to you, not someone else, the difference between your strategy and the one that AH "farmers" use is the amount of stacks going through it, you take 1 hour to produce 40 flasks, someone buying mats can make a hell of a lot more then 40 flasks in 1 hour, they usually don't buy herbs at the AH price either but have a supplier with a much lower price or frequent the AH to pick up the stacks posted by a botter for a minimum price.

And that person would have to deal with what the market could bear, 40 flasks a day sold is pretty good, selling more than that would start to get tougher and tougher the more you list. As far as lower market cost, so what, his initial investment would still be exponentially higher than mine. But this is moot, no opinions will be changed. Enjoy your "cost effective" method where you make 10x profit I will enjoy mine where I make 1000x profit.

[Trubo]

Agreed. the mats do not suddenly become worthtless, however, I do not have an initial investment...I make 5k gold every single day with an hours worth of work. Might not seem like much to some, but for me, it is just fine.

This might come off as a semantics post but please bear with me. Time in this case will be real time.

Your initial investment includes the cost of the seeds (0.9 gold per seed x 16 seeds x 10 farms = 144 gold total), time it takes to plant/harvest + time growing plants (averaging 24 hours). From your perspective you value all of these things as zero but the total cost comes out to be gold-cheap (144g) and time-expensive (24 hours). I'm assuming your value on the time is so low as you're doing other things during this time period that are more valuable to you as the majority of your time cost is automated.

That's not to say that what you're doing isn't worth doing. I'm only trying to illustrate the differences in how you and others value your time. The person that prefers to buy their mats from another person values not having to do any sort of farming, whether physically flying around the game or going to their farm. To them their method is very time-cheap (however long they spend buying mats and making pots/flasks) but gold-expensive (cost of everything they bought).

Note: Forgot to account for the AH but in terms of time it's practically zero. In terms of gold it can be an issue.

[Sillyputty]

I used to spend days on end farming my own mats so I could undercut everyone. Ahh the days of being young and rude. Sorry to everyone I did that to

Farming is not free. I've made hundreds of thousands of people like you. Time is money friend.

[Kantoro]

This might come off as a semantics post but please bear with me. Time in this case will be real time.

Your initial investment includes the cost of the seeds (0.9 gold per seed x 16 seeds x 10 farms = 144 gold total), time it takes to plant/harvest + time growing plants (averaging 24 hours). From your perspective you value all of these things as zero but the total cost comes out to be gold-cheap (144g) and time-expensive (24 hours). I'm assuming your value on the time is so low as you're doing other things during this time period that are more valuable to you as the majority of your time cost is automated.

That's not to say that what you're doing isn't worth doing. I'm only trying to illustrate the differences in how you and others value your time. The person that prefers to buy their mats from another person values not having to do any sort of farming, whether physically flying around the game or going to their farm. To them their method is very time-cheap (however long they spend buying mats and making pots/flasks) but gold-expensive (cost of everything they bought).

Note: Forgot to account for the AH but in terms of time it's practically zero. In terms of gold it can be an issue.

That 24 hours is not included becuz I am not sitting there watching my seeds grow, this is happening regardless of what else I am doing. If you want to go that route, I can say that the time your goods spends on the AH should be included in your prices, right? I prolly should have included the price of the seeds. Seed bags are 27g each and I can get 40 crops planted out of each. That is 67s per crop. I make 4 herbs per crop, so 67sx5 is about 3.35g per stack of herbs. I guess that would be my initial investment. And don't forget you can only list so many flasks, the market will only bear so much. I hit my saturation point quite nicely.

I would like to know why my 24 hour farm time must be included but your AH time is practically zero.

[Trubo]

I would like to know why my 24 hour farm time must be included but your AH time is practically zero.

You can plant as many crops in a day that you'd like but until the reset you have zero herbs. The person who buys their herbs, whether from the AH or another source, spends only the time it takes to get said herbs from said source. If we use the AH as source of herbs then it takes only the amount of time for the person to search for a type of herb, buy all the quantities they want, then go to their mailbox.

Edit: Again though the point I was trying to make is that people like you and people who prefer to use the AH as their source of materials are both right. You are able to post your flasks at a lower price because the cost to you was relatively low. However the tradeoff is that you are somewhat limited in the quantity you can provide.

[Kantoro]

True, but bear in mind there is a limit to how many you can sell a day becuz of what the market can bear. Can you sell 100 flasks a day? Probably not, the competition is too high and the sheer volume can't be moved. People who list 100+ flasks will almost certainly get the bulk of those back in the mail. I know I used to be a flask maker, anymore than 20 a day pushing it, you just can't find a market quickly enough without being undercut.

[Abysal]

Guys leave the farmers like Kantoro alone! They make me rich. I wish there were more on my server.

[Nohara]

I like how some of the AH players believe they put less time in the game then a farmer. On a decent realm, you simply cant walk away from the AH, and let your auctions be for 12-24-48 hours. Buying out that dummy of a farmer for cheap mats might not seem as much time spend, but then you have the time of crafting/smelting/milling/whatevering with it, and trying to resell those items while constantly being undercut by others who do exactly the same thing. In other words, you will spend most of your time sitting at the auction house.

The real AH players that are smart will always make a lot more then the farmer, but at the cost of not playing the game at all and watching numbers all day. In the end, both the farmer and the AH player have no life at all.

[Alexpower3]

True, but bear in mind there is a limit to how many you can sell a day becuz of what the market can bear. Can you sell 100 flasks a day? Probably not, the competition is too high and the sheer volume can't be moved. People who list 100+ flasks will almost certainly get the bulk of those back in the mail. I know I used to be a flask maker, anymore than 20 a day pushing it, you just can't find a market quickly enough without being undercut.

I would like to point out something from my days of shuffling late in the cata expac (a few months after 4.3)

Sure, my first batch of ore was farmed to get me started. I farmed a full inventory of 32 slot mining bags worth of elementium ore.
When I prospected it all and sent the greens(from making rings/amulets from the green quality gems) to my enchanter to disenchant, I sent all the carnelians to my transmute master alchemist and I sent all the blue procced quality rings/amulets to a bank alt. (which by the way I am still unloading from all the shuffling I did over the course of the last 5 -6 months of cata.)

Every cycle I did this, I spent maybe 20k gold at one time... on cheap ore when I scouted it on the AH. I prospected and distributed the same way each time. This is my result..


(you can't plainly see it, but I had sold 1428 brilliant inferno rubies, at about 113g each after AH cut)

This is a current picture of the money I have made since I installed TradeSkillMaster. (mentioned above)

I had purchased 124,220 ore. which cost 171,362g total and earned me 1,128,792g.

At the height of my income, I was making 65 - 70 kg a week.

I was foolish to sell so much hypnotic dust during that time.. but I still hold 6,700 dust bouncing in forever mail storage when I get the time to unload it.

I have 100+ embersilk bags still waiting to be slowly sold over time, and the same goes with blue jewelry (mostly all thats left now is the nightstone pendants)

Never touched the flask market. The gear preparation market was far more lucrative. Especially with the new introduction of LFR. I found that flasks were more often than not provided for by raiding guilds anyway.

[whatthefudge]

Demand for flasks and other raid materials is high early in the week when raids have just reset and people are dropping gold at the last minute to get their consumables ready. As the week goes on demand goes down, as demand goes down price goes down.

[Sliippy]

Well, on my server I usually end up selling my flasks somewhere between 100g and 65g. I dont mind this because I have 4 farms. So for about 15 min worth of work I usually end up selling 30-40ish flasks a day depending on how many golden lotus I get and how many procs I have. I dont buy mats from the ah or do any actual herbing. So really as long as I'm getting back the 24g that I spend every like 3 days. I'm coming out ahead. And since I make anywhere from 2-3k a day from just that. I'd say it's a fine way to do it.

[Delaios]

snip

All I can think of after reading that, is what a complete waste of time it is. I just can't fathom how anyone could enjoy spending their in-game time fiddling with AH AddOns, prospecting/DEing thousands of times, emptying hundreds of mails with thousands of items across several characters and constantly relisting items on the AH.

I have absolutely zero interest in maximizing my gold earned earned in this game. I can completely supply myself with everything I need, bar raid drop patterns, and only sell off items when my supply has grown too large. But when I do sell of items, I couldn't care less about how much I undercut other people. I just want my stuff sold, fast. Preferably I see a "buyer has been found" message before I log off. I've got roughly 660k gold (excluding any items) with nothing to spend it on. I couldn't care less if I could sell my items for more by buying out and relisting, or crafting it into goods.

Excluding mounts I wouldn't use anyway, there's nothing to spend gold on, so why should I care to maximize my gold income?

[usiris]

All I can think of after reading that, is what a complete waste of time it is. I just can't fathom how anyone could enjoy spending their in-game time fiddling with AH AddOns, prospecting/DEing thousands of times, emptying hundreds of mails with thousands of items across several characters and constantly relisting items on the AH.

I have absolutely zero interest in maximizing my gold earned earned in this game. I can completely supply myself with everything I need, bar raid drop patterns, and only sell off items when my supply has grown too large. But when I do sell of items, I couldn't care less about how much I undercut other people. I just want my stuff sold, fast. Preferably I see a "buyer has been found" message before I log off. I've got roughly 660k gold (excluding any items) with nothing to spend it on. I couldn't care less if I could sell my items for more by buying out and relisting, or crafting it into goods.

Excluding mounts I wouldn't use anyway, there's nothing to spend gold on, so why should I care to maximize my gold income?

I could replace everything that has to do with gold making in this post with stuff related to pvp or raiding and it says the same thing.