Duping Hack destroys World of Warcraft Gold value
My home server has seen a sudden surge in Queen’s Garnet and Crimson Deathcharger items, allegedly due to duping hacks by clever, but malicious, profiteers. The Consortium forum at Stormspire also reported an increase in numbers of Queen’s Garnets How did this happen?
World of Warcraft is a complicated game, as UtesDad of US-Eitrigg says, and that’s why these small loopholes can be found. Blizzard will be working behind the scenes to hot-fix the problems, but in the meantime, gold gamers’ investments have dropped in value.
Worldwide Crimson Deathcharger prices
Data from The Undermine Journal shows that the number of Crimson Deathchargers available worldwide is 202. My server saw 9 out of those 202, which is a considerable percentage.
Notice also how the standard deviation spread is almost as much as the actual market price. That’s a wide spread of prices, between the hopeful sellers (high price) and the quick turnaround day traders (low price).
NEW: WoW Gold Dupe (February 17, 2012)
We have recently discovered a working gold dupe exploit which has recently become possible because of a flaw in Cataclysm’s code! Make sure you check this out and make good use of it, as it will likely be patched soon!
Quote from “World of Warcraft Exploits Website” (URL withheld)
Duping exploits and hacks are against all Blizzard terms, and accounts involved with duping will be facing the ban hammer. But, Blizzard, banning players for innocently buying these cheap items, thinking they have a great deal, is a complete FAIL by your customer services. Those players were victims of your ineptitude. Please sort this out asap!
How much have my investments fallen?
Invested: 60,000 in queen’s garnet, now worth only 40,000g. One Death Charger, bought for 120k
Potential Loss 20k in queen’s garnet, 10-20k on mount. 40k is only two day’s work on WoW, but it’s still seriously annoying, 40,000g would buy me a lot of stuff! I don’t like taking any loss, ever. Don’t worry this is only a very small percentage of my investments, I’m still making a lot of gold with my other sales.
What I am worrying about is any players who have made a significant investment in these duped items in all innocence.
Are the Gold Sellers and Hackers becoming more clever?
Aside from these WoW dupe hacks, I’m also seeing a decrease in in numbers of herbs and ore available on the AH. Bots are being purged from the system. Â At the same time, I’m seeing players throwing hundreds of gems on to AH to form a wall. Do they really have 50g to spend on AH fees just for the thrill of blocking their competitors? Or are these clever farmers? Something to think about.
What to do about Warcraft Hacking Dupes
If you suspect a duped item, report it, don’t buy it. I suspected duping only after I’d innocently bought my investments. Use the ! HELP facility to contact a GM games master.
- Stop buying
- Stop selling in bulk. You will have a lot of competition and wear yourself out with frustration undercutting each other.
- Be patient. This too will pass. The dupes will sell, and you will have your opportunity to sell. Watch for the opportunity.
- Sell one at a time.
- Look for alternate markets. Gems flooded? Try engineering items, herbs, or transmogrification items.
- Don’t annoy your competitors, it doesn’t help anyone.
- Post a rant here and get rid of your frustration.
Have you seen Duping on your WoW server? Items falling in price, and abnormally high supply?
About the Author
The Gold Queen is written by Alyzande. With many level 100s, 9 years expertise in making gold, 10 garrisons, 16k achievements, 1505 days played, and over 18m gold earned. The Gold Queen blog teaches you how to make gold playing World of Warcraft using ethical trading, auction house flipping, crafting, reselling snatch lists, and farming gold making.
UPDATE: As this article goes to press, I sold my Crimson Deathcharger at a 20k profit, but found a massive sudden influx of raw Queen’s Garnets on the WoW AH at low prices.
Trade Skill Master Addon Full Release Available
Trade Skill Master has overtaken Auctioneer. It’s your essential number one auction house and world of warcraft economy addon.
Where to download Trade Skill Master
You can get TSM from Curse Gaming addons, using either the addon client (review here) or as part of the Gold Queen addon pack.
If you already have TradeSkill Master, don’t forget to update your addon! With Patch 4.3.2 due today, keep your Warcraft addons up to date.
How to learn TSM
Faid from Nerf Faids has made an awesome new Trade Skill Master (TSM) movie guide.
- TradeSkillMaster was made by addon developers who are constantly in touch with the World of Warcraft gold making community
- TSM addon can almost automate many of your posts, pre-setting posting prices.
- Like Auctioneer, Trade Skill Master opens inside the normal Auction House window.
- Read more in my 2011 compilation of free TSM addon guides from world of warcraft gold bloggers.
- If you are still using auctioneer and anxious about learning the new features of TSM, today is the best day to start, beginning with Faid’s movies.
- TSM is modular. That means each part of TSM is a separate chunk which you can choose to download or use. It’s light on memory. Auctions are faster.
I know that TSM can appear very complicated and daunting to a new user, but just slowly follow through with the guides, and you will be up and running in no time.
Good Luck,
About the Author
The Gold Queen is written by Alyzande. With many level 100s, 9 years expertise in making gold, 10 garrisons, 16k achievements, 1505 days played, and over 18m gold earned. The Gold Queen blog teaches you how to make gold playing World of Warcraft using ethical trading, auction house flipping, crafting, reselling snatch lists, and farming gold making.
A puzzle for you.
I came across this situation at 8am, after a long night of gem dealing. Cut gem prices were very slow to sell all night but were maintaining a high price at 150g all night, until 7am, when a rogue trader entered the market and began undercutting cut gem prices by 1c every 5 seconds. Cut gem prices were rapidly falling from their night long high, and were plummetting towards the cost of the raw uncut gem.
What would you do if you saw this situation
Cut gems
149 99 97
149 99 98 (yours)
149 99 99
150 00 00 (yours)
151 478 99
151 49 00 (yours)
155 00 00 + a dozen or so Other Sellers
Uncut gems
149 00 00
Uncut gems usual price
100 00 00
What would you do?
What do we know?
Uncut gems usual price is 100g. Due to high supply of the uncut gems, within two hours the uncut gems supply will have fallen to the usual price of 100g. With the fall of the uncut gems to 100g, cut gems will fall to 110-120g maximum.
Your competitor has just woken at 7am, ready for a long day ahead of gem trading. He has little patience, wants to throw his expired auctions on the AH and get on with his game. You, on the other hand, have been awake all night, and are ready for a good night kip, and must sell your cut gems at a profit.
If you don’t sell your gems now, then it is likely that your prices will fall from 150 ish to 100 ish when you log back in. That’s a huge drop 150 to 100g.
What did I do?
I scared the competitor away using AH pvp.
Cut gems
120 00 00 (yours)
149 99 97
149 99 98 (yours)
149 99 99
151 478 99
The problem is that 120g looks like a deep LOSS. I’m offering for sale the cut gem below the cost of the uncut gem. The competitor CAN NOT compete with this. He thinks I’m crazy! He refuses to undercut below the uncut gem price.
I bought all my uncut gems at 100g, so 120g is a profit for me. I have another 3+ stacks of gems ready to cut.
The competitor leaves the market. He stops undercutting me.
I wait 5 minutes. There is no reaction. The morning is progressing. I know that buyers will soon be arriving in the Auction House ready to pick up new gems. I cannot risk that 120g gem staying there for long. I post the rest of my gems:
Cut gems
120 00 00 (yours)
149 99 96 x 20 (yours)
149 99 97
149 99 98 (yours)
149 99 99
151 478 99
Conclusion:
The 120g cut gem sells to someone who thinks they are lucky that they paid under the cut gem price. (I made 20g profit.)
Uncut gem supply increase, and the uncut gem price slowly lowers to 100g over the course of the day. (It wobbles around 100-140g for the next week.)
My competitor was scared away, he held back from selling at the moment.
My 20 x 149g 99s 96c gems all sold.
The price of the cut gems then held steady at 150g.
My competitor had the opportunity to then post his gems at 150g later in the day and make his profit.
I made my profit. He made his profit.
Summary
I was relieved to be able to sell my cut gems at a good profit. If I had not placed that fake undercut gem, then my gems would all have been 1c undercut, and I would not have made any sales.
I was glad that my gems all sold quickly at a high price, and left the buyers wanting more.
Because I only posted one warning shot, faking a deep undercut with the 120g, the other sellers backed away for a moment, allowing me to get rid of my stock.
As soon as my stock was gone, the prices reverted to the high 150g price.
A week later, the cut gem prices are still at 150g .. more or less.
About the Author
The Gold Queen is written by Alyzande. With many level 100s, 9 years expertise in making gold, 10 garrisons, 16k achievements, 1505 days played, and over 18m gold earned. The Gold Queen blog teaches you how to make gold playing World of Warcraft using ethical trading, auction house flipping, crafting, reselling snatch lists, and farming gold making.
Gold Queen’s Transmogrification Snatch List, part 2.
Our biggest problem with choosing which leather items to sell on the Auction House for transmogrification is that there are only two classes that use leather. Druids, who are often fighting in shapeshifted form, and rogues. Rogues seem to favour black leather gear. Both classes have pretty tier gear, especially pre-Cataclysm.
Our target transmogrification customer for leather is a rogue or a druid who wants to look different to others of his/her class.
Crafted with Leatherworking skill
- Stylin Jungle Hat 1.5k-5,000g depending on how cheeky you feel
- Stylin Purple Hat
- Wolfshead Helm
- Big Voodoo Robe / Mask
- Moonglow Vest 90g or 190g if persistent.
- Stormshroud set 500g-1k
Flipped (BoE items bought on AH for resale at higher price)
- Kilt of Living Growth
- Ceremonial Leather set
- Ymirjar Physician’s Robe Buy 20g, sell 400g
- Swashbuckler’s Eyepatch [of Anything]
- Earthborn Kilt Buy 10g, sell 50g+
- Sandals of the Insurgent Buy 0-50g, sell 100g+
- Glyphed set
- Mystic Sarong 190g price point
- Tracker’s set
About the Author
The Gold Queen is written by Alyzande. With many level 100s, 9 years expertise in making gold, 10 garrisons, 16k achievements, 1505 days played, and over 18m gold earned. The Gold Queen blog teaches you how to make gold playing World of Warcraft using ethical trading, auction house flipping, crafting, reselling snatch lists, and farming gold making.
Gold Queen’s Transmogrification Prices
I’ll show you my Simple Stepping System, how to pricing items part of a set, how to choose your first transmogrification flip item, and teach you to choose your target buy prices.
The Simple Stepping System
A 5 step system.
- Looks good 90g
- Looks better 190g
- This is just the cloth or plate chest I was looking for 290g
- “oo I bet no one else has one of these” 400g
- Unique on the server up to 5k
For items that are part of a set
- Chest and legs 100%
- Gloves, helmet, boots, belt 80%
- Bracers 50%
Price Point examples
How do you decide which band on the Simple Stepping System to price your item?
- Look at what others are doing.
- If it works, copy it! Nothing wrong with strategy stealing.
- Become aware of popular fashions by watching players and inspecting them.
- Browse the Auction House, opening your character paper doll to preview different styles on your character. Compare these to what you have seen in the fashion.
- Become aware of supply trends. Â Just how rare is that rare item? How difficult is it to make or to loot? Check this on WoWhead.
- Adjust your prices constantly, depending on supply, demand, uniqueness, fashions, and player whims.
How to choose your first Transmogrification Item to flip on the Auction House
Browse for an item that you would like to see on your own character, at a price below what you would expect to pay. Consider which price bracket you would normally pay for the item. Choose your target buy price.
Try it!
If it still has not sold within a week, gently and slowly lower your prices. Have patience for a fortnight. Then give up, and wear it yourself, or stash it in the bank for trying later when the transmog flipping trend dies down a little. Have your back up plan in place.
Selling to other Auction House gamers.
As well as targeting potential customers, if you buy an item at a low enough price, you can resell it at a midway price, aiming to sell to other auction house gamers for their resale. Â Let them take all the risk. I would normally use the 90g pricepoint in the Simple Stepping System
I could get 3 times this amount if I had the patience to hang on for selling to a transmogrifier. I was still learning, though, and happy to resell for 40g profit to another AH player.
Transmogrification is a trendy way of making gold at the moment, especially with the recent feature of “The Mogfather” in WoW Insider. You can take advantage of this by trying to outwit your competition and offering to sell them your items that you know no-one will really want at the end of the day. Things like the Raiders and Defenders red and blue semi-skimpy low level chain mail sets.
Your target buy price
Once you know your selling price, you can set your buying price.
My maximum is 50% of the target selling price.
[quote]For example
Ymirjar Physician’s Robe
Target Selling Price 400g
Maximum price to pay: 200g[/quote]
It’s essential to balance your buying and selling prices, because some of the transmogrification items are very fast sellers, some are slow.
[quote]There is no day of the week where red chain mail armor is more trendy than another.[/quote]
At any one time you could have up to 50,000g invested in transmogrification items. If you find you are not making a profit, stop spending. Simple as that. Wait for your current inventory to sell before you buy more.
What are your transmogrification price points?
Are you asking for more gold than me? Or are you less of a risk taker and are only flipping one or two transmog items per day? Let me know in the comments.
About the Author
The Gold Queen is written by Alyzande. With many level 100s, 9 years expertise in making gold, 10 garrisons, 16k achievements, 1505 days played, and over 18m gold earned. The Gold Queen blog teaches you how to make gold playing World of Warcraft using ethical trading, auction house flipping, crafting, reselling snatch lists, and farming gold making.
Big Iron Fishing Rod
Off the shores of Shadowprey Village, south-west Desolace.
My story:
I was flying through Desolace last night, hunting Elders for the Lunar Festival, and stopping along the way to vaguely prod some archaeology sites. I remembered that pre-Cataclysm, the shellfish traps outside of Shadowprey Village in Desolace would occasionally yield a Big Iron Fishing Rod. It didn’t take long to discover that the fishing rod still drops from the shellfish traps.
You will need to be level 30+ because the shellfish traps can sometimes spawn a 7 foot shellfish with a bad attitude. You can also amass quite a collection of grey quality boots and discarded sandals.
Below level 85, and alliance, beware of aggroing the horde flight master at the end of Shadowprey village pier.
With either druid’s aquaform (evil grinning seal) or Reins of Poseidus, collecting the shellfish traps goes quickly, and perhaps because of that I got the feeling that the drop rates were buffed. Perhaps 10% drop rate.
Big Iron Fishing Rod is the highest +fishing skill bonus rod that is not bind on equip. You should therefore be able to find a good price for it in your local AH. You can also use it on alts when they are leveling fishing, and sell it afterwards. It doesn’t bind on use.
Price?
The Undermine Journal didn’t have a price for the rod on my server, however WoWhead offered a guide price of 55g per rod.
I found four during my brief swim around the coast area.
Don’t go running over to Desolace just for a fishing rod, but if you happen to be in the area, like I was, then Desolace might just be the right place to loot a unique item for your auction house. Let me know how you get on with finding them.
About the Author
The Gold Queen is written by Alyzande. With many level 100s, 9 years expertise in making gold, 10 garrisons, 16k achievements, 1505 days played, and over 18m gold earned. The Gold Queen blog teaches you how to make gold playing World of Warcraft using ethical trading, auction house flipping, crafting, reselling snatch lists, and farming gold making.