Intro

OK, I seem to be one of those guys on World of Warcraft that always has money and everyone is always asking me for some of it. If they are not asking me for money other players are asking me how I get all that gold. This is a rambling response to all those people with all my secrets (if you can call them that) revealed. Take from it what you can, and do with it what you will.

The first secret to making a lot of WoW gold is simple: patience. There is no real easy way to make money without putting in time. Sure you will see some people talk about playing the Auction House relentlessly, but there are so many people doing that it is hard to find the quick turn over’s that would make it worth while, even using an addon like Auctioneer. That really leaves doing dungeons (and questing), manufacturing and farming.

Dungeon Running for Cash

Have you ever tried running chain heroics for badges? You know what I mean, you got a group together and did every dungeon in Northrend for the badges to get the armor you needed. Remember how boring that was, remember how much gold you spent on repairs? Did you make any gold at it at all? If you did make some gold you made very little and it took an awfully long time. Even with the new random dungeon tool with the badge rewards and the gold rewards, if you get killed even once then you can kiss all profit goodbye. If you are looking to earn badges, great and probably well worth it; but if your aim is to make some cash, this is not the way. And I have not even talked about the cost of buff food or battle and guardian elixirs.

However there is one option that does make sense to some extent… Level 80 daily quests. You can do 25 daily quests and each gets you about 13g or more. In addition there is the cash you make looting and some include badges or seals. If you are good you can do it all in about 2 hours. Total it up… about 325g and up 10 Crusader Champions Seals. (After you buy everything you need with the seals, you can keep buying pets and resell them for good cash on the AH. Also you can buy heirlooms that benefit your other character and this is important.) This is not bad gold per hour when all is said and done and most players if they are not greedy can easily live on this gold to play comfortably.

Manufacturing for Money

Personally I find manufacturing dull and in some cases really risky. If you are buying the materials you need to create product you have to balance the price of all materials and time against what you can actually sell the products for. That sounds easy, but when it comes right down to it unless there is a very brisk market for what you are selling you could find yourself sitting on a whole lot of product without any buyers. Oops. Here is an example: Let’s say you are an Alchemist with a specialty of Elixirs, your skill is at 450, and you have decided to make Flasks of the Frost Wyrm for resell. If you are buying the mats you are paying about 60g for a Frost Lotus, 4g for 5 Lichbloom, 8g for 5 Ice Thorn and 1g for the vial. This produces on average 2.5 elixirs (remember the Elixir Mastery proc).  So lets add it all up: Total Cost for 2.5 doses is 72g with a net cost of 28g / 80s (your mileage may vary).

As a net cost before marketing that is not bad under optimum conditions. The average sell price is about 35g. The auction house takes a cut of that of course (5%) so the price new net is 33g / 25s. Total gold made on one dose … … 4g / 45s. So if we make 100 of them we can make 445g, IF we can sell them all, IF we don’t have to repost them (loosing the initial deposit to the AH). It is not hard to see where a bad couple of days could wipe out the 445g profit just to AH costs and here is the kicker… you WILL have competition and you WILL be undercut sometimes. Can you afford to be undercut too often? Kicker number two; consider the Herbalist/Alchemist profession character that can undercut you all day (more on this later). Obviously making money directly off the AH is tricky and full of risk.

The other option in manufacturing is the JIT (Just In Time) method where you make items to suit demand and in very small quantities. This approach has the advantage of minimizing loss while retaining raw mats for other products. What does not work in this case is the “LFW Tailor” where you will get people asking and trying to undercut prices on the AH. This is an awful way to make cash unless you really are desperate, although if the tips are good you could do ok, but it is a real grind and you really have to have a complete repertoire of patterns and the most up to date one as well. In any case DO NOT TAKE ORDERS UNLESS THEY ARE PREPAID.

There are many ways of making money with manufacturing but they can become more time consuming than you think. Work your strategy out for you; this is not my idea of making money in the amounts I like.

Mining / Farming for Gold

If there is an activity in World of Warcraft that is money from nothing more than your time, mining / herbing / skinning / fishing / grinding is it. The idea here is to either provide the raw materials other people need or to provide yourself the materials you need to manufacture the stuff you find profitable. The only hard part is to know what to farm that will provide you with the kind of profit you want in the timely manner you want.

In my case I am an herbalist. I farm herbs in Sholazar Basin and resell them for a good profit. Occasionally I make all my potions and it costs me practically nothing, saving me tons of cash. The trick here is now to figure out a way to make enough money in the time you have that is to your taste.

The following will be ideas and tips on how to farm, what to think about, Auction House considerations and what gear may help.

What to farm?

This may seem like a no brainer, but really, it is not nearly as stupid as you may think. The obvious thing is to farm what you are specialized in. I am an herbalist, I farm herbs; but what herbs. The top two most difficult herbs to “pick” are technically Ice Thorn and Lichbloom. These herbs are also used in most high end potions and many inscriptions and enchantments. You would think they would be the right stuff to pick because they may be more intrinsically valuable, but you would be wrong. There are so many people picking these herbs the market is flooded and the price swings all over the place. People are desperate to sell the stuff so the undercutting is ferocious. True you may be able to use these herbs in a second profession, but we are not talking about that. Also, the area that spawn these herbs are big, really big to the distance between the herbs is bigger and therefore it takes more time. Honestly, if there were more node of these or the area where they grow was smaller (and the mobs you have to fight less difficult) I would probably farm these myself. (BTW, if you are dying while farming you are in the wrong place. Either find another place or get better gear; death is too expensive to be a consideration when farming.)

So what do I farm on a consistent basis? Adders Tongue, Tiger Lily, and Goldclover. The most consistent seller here is the Goldclover because there are fewer of these nodes to draw from and it is still used in many high end products. I also do all my herbing in Northrend which have three adds, Crystallized Life, Deadnettle, and Frost Lotus. These adds also sell really well and Frost Lotus is the undisputed king of all herbs.

When if comes down to it the only way to know what to farm is what works for you. Experiment, farm one thing for a day then try something different the next. Watch how it sells or how well it works in your manufacturing. I know there are some herbalist that pick a lot of lower level herbs and some of these sell really well (better in fact than some of the high end herbs) and they make a lot of money. Remember people have to create things at a lower level before moving up to more expensive stuff so there is always a demand for low and medium level herbs; same thing for minerals, skins, fish and mob drops.

Just remember, you can farm ANYTHING!

A Node?

A node is a spot that produces a collectable such as herbs, minerals, fish, or even mobs. I will be using the word node often to refer to a “gathering spot” for farming.

What Races / Classes make the best farmers?

It really does not matter what race or what class you are if you want to farm. All races and classes have access to gear and abilities that make it possible for them to farm pretty effectively. That being said there may be some advantages in class (and thus race restrictions) that can help them farm well.

Rogues: For whatever reason I am seeing (or not seeing as the case may be) more Rogues as farmers than ever before. I am assuming this has to do with the increased speed they can run and the fact that they can avoid conflicts (either beasts or other players) by being invisible. It is very interesting to watch the mini map with the nodes you are tracking and watch a node blink off and there is no one by the node. Whether this adds to the overall productivity of farming is beyond me, I cannot see the advantage.

Warrior Classes: Where the rogues approach by stealth the warriors (Paladins, Death Knights, etc) use force and high armor to grab their nodes. Even if there is a mob on the node they generally just walk up and take it ignoring the mob beating on them. Once the node is taken they can then hack the mob to pieces and continue. This does increase farming productivity by allowing them to take the node first then handle the environment frustrating other players who would try to ninja the node out from under them. This can be important when the area you are in is crowded and there are a lot of people to contend with.

Warlocks and Hunters: If there is one huge advantage these classes have it’s that they can have combat pets. The pets can tank mobs allowing the farmer to get to the node faster and then move on after the environment is dealt with. This can be important when the area you are in is crowded and there are a lot of people to contend with.

Druids: If there is one class that you want to be as a farmer (specifically mining and herbing) it is a Druid and for one reason only; Flight Form (at epic speed). The fact that the Druid does not have to dismount and remount is an incredible bonus in shear time. They spend least than half the time on the nodes than other classes do and that means they can visit more nodes faster. More nodes mean more money in less time… always a bonus. Also in flight form mobs are less likely to bother them. If you are considering making a character just for farming, consider making a druid.

It’s all about speed

This is about the truest statement a farmer can make. The faster the better. When farming it is highly recommended you have an epic mount moving as fast as possible. It’s a matter of numbers, the more nodes you gather and the faster you do it the better. I use a drake for most of my movement (280% movement increase) and I want in the worst way a 310% movement mount. I am working on it, the 10% speed bonus would be nice.

So why a drake? This is actually a very conscious decision. Let’s say I am racing another person to a node. The drake is fast and very large and covers the node. Ever try to pick a node you can’t see? It is very difficult. This frustrates other people and allows you the chance to grab the node. Call if offensive farming.

While it is possible to farm on foot or with a slower mount, you will have to be more aware of your “flight path”. Most farmers get into a rhythm optimizing the distance between nodes; obviously the shorter the better. Stringing nodes together will get you more nodes but be prepared to have nodes ninja’ed out from under you.

Speaking of “Flight Paths”, if you find you are following someone, turn off and go somewhere else or even double back on your path. You never know when a node will respawn, but you do know the guy in front of you will get the next node and you will be fighting over all the nodes in the area. It is just not worth it, go somewhere else.

It’s all about time

What was the number one thing to remember about getting WoW gold rich? Patience. The more time you put in the more you make. Personally I find if the area I am farming is not too crowded I can farm for about 4 hours and make about 2500g in one day. This translates to about 75 stacks of herbs BTW. After that I can do whatever I want. Heck these days I do not even farm every day since most of what I want can’t be got with gold but rather badges or in raids. I try to farm 4 days a week and if the market is good I clear 10k a week less my raiding costs.

Don’t get mad

If you get upset because someone stole your node you will waste time griping about it while the guy who snaked you just continues on. Forget about it, just move to the next node and get over it, there are always more nodes.

Now I have to admit there are times when it seems everyone in the area is out to get my node. I land there and suddenly there is someone else there taking my stuff. It can get really frustrating. If you do get frustrated just do something else or find a different area to farm. Personally if I am not farming Sholazar Basin I am farming Storm Peaks or Ice Crown. Why these areas? Because they have a lot of nodes and the secondary gather of Frost lotus is very lucrative. You may have other areas to farm. In any case when you find you are loosing your cool, do something or go somewhere else and come back later.

Be a good citizen

The one thing that really burns my blood while farming is I get on a node and am attacked by some mob and while fighting the mob some opportunistic jackass then comes in and takes the node. Personally I pass by a node if I see anyone within a reasonable distance of the node. After all I don’t like people stealing my nodes, I am not going to steal a node someone else got to first. When you think about it this really saves you time and it is all about the time. I just wish there was a way of “tagging” nodes like you can tag a mob for experience and drop credit. That would certainly put an end to the ninja farmers.

Get geared

It should go without saying that the best farmers are highly geared level 80 toons. Why? Because a well geared character can deal with whatever might happen. In this case the gear can include anything that maximizes your farming such as armor, mounts and bags. I have one toon that is both an herbalist and a miner. He is equipped with a red drake, two Mammoth Mining Bags (32 slots each), and two Emerald Bags (32 slots each). This equipment and minimal amount of other items that take bag slots, allow him to hold 140 stacks of stuff before he has to empty his bags. When he is running well I can make 5000g from straight sales or if smelted bars are selling well I can shift those over to a BS character and make even more.

There are two other luxuries that I afford my farming characters because they reduce the time I have to spending finding vendors and going into cities. The Travelers Tundra Mammoth may seem an extravagant luxury, but if you can afford it I recommend it, if for no other reason than to empty bags of junk and cash in on the odds and ends (remember we are making cash any way we can). Not only are there vendors on the Mammoth, Gnimo is also a repair bot. I can comfortably say that I have made back my 18k investment for the mammoth in vendoring junk and time savings. The other luxury is the Argent Squire pet with the pony upgrade. The upgrade not only puts the squire on a pony when you mount up but it allows the squire to do things, like visit a bank, visit a mail box, and be a vendor. Similarly if you have engineering you can get these services as well (and I think an auctioneer too) but it takes one profession that may or may not be suitable to farming.

Having a well rounded and well geared character will make the whole process easier. Obviously you don’t need to have the absolute top of the line gear, but you should have at least all blues and better all purple gear. With the new random dungeon process it is simple to get well geared and you should take advantage of it.

Ka-Ching!

OK, let’s say that you have now filled your bags and you are ready to sell your stuff. After all you have made no money until you have sold your stuff. How should you sell it? Should you make something out of it? Should you hold on to it or set the price unusually high. Let’s consider just selling the stuff and at what price.

To start off I recommend you get an addon called Auctioneer. This addon will automate posting good and give you a relative idea about how items are priced. Good use of this addon will help you make money, but more advanced use will come in time as you get familiar with the market.

NOTE: When you post a new item and before you create a new auction be sure to hit the “Refresh” button every time. If you do not you may loose money by posting auctions that will not sell. You will only have to make this mistake a couple of times before it becomes a habit of “refresh”ing.

Note: As you become acquainted with the market you should expect to make a normal return. If prices fluctuate wildly price your good at your prices and you should be able to get it. Never think you have to undercut the market all the time (although you will most of the time) or gouge people to make a profit. The rule is this: YOU HAVE MADE NO MONEY AT ALL UNTIL IT IS IN YOUR BANK. You can’t eat your mats, so to speak.

Auctions and Buyouts

Obviously there is a difference here, the auction price is the minimum you will accept for the item you are selling and people can bid up the price to whatever the market will bare. A buy out is an ideal price you would like for your item. The advantage of a buyout is the buyer gets the item they purchase immediately. People bidding in auction must wait until time expires and take the risk of other people outbidding them or buying out the item. In all honesty we are not interested at all in auctions, what we want to for people to buyout our good outright so we get paid sooner. The tactic you will notice most people taking is having the auction minimum bid being about 10% or less than the buyout price. This tactic entices the buyer to just buy it outright which is better for us and them since they know they get the item. A good example is my price for Deadnettle. I price it at 10g a stack buyout and minimum auction is 9g. I never have people bid the price, and if someone does, someone else will always come along and just buy it out.

Note: The auction prices and buyout prices are handled separately and this being the case it is very important to pay attention to them separately. There is a tactic of pricing the an auction price very low and when people automatically price auctions the can mistakenly price it too low. The person who priced the auction low will then bid on your sale at this very low price. If they win it they will turn it around and sell your item a high price and make a profit. Be careful of this and price your auction to your liking and not automatically based on the market.

One of the other things to make your prices more appealing, price your items in nice round numbers. I usually shave off any copper and usually round to the next lower 10 silver. Say if Auctioneer says a good price is 13g 47s 32c, I would price it at 13g, 40s. When you price like this it is easier for people to understand and are more likely to buy your item. Some people will say it doesn’t matter, I think it does and since I am successful I will stick to this thinking.

I am going to take this looking at some of the more common conditions you will find in the AH. Remember, this is where you will be making your money, it is important to understand what you are looking at.

You post and there are no other sales of what you are selling

This is simple to understand, if you are posting something that normally sells a lot it means there is a large demand for the item. You are now the only one to provide this on your server. So how should you price your item? Let’s take for example “Adders Tongue”. When the market is doing a brisk turnover of this item you notice the price tends to level out at about 14g a stack. Since this is the usual going price you should really expect to get 14g a stack, but we have a situation where you are the only seller and can now set the price. What will you do? Will you gouge people for it and set the price way high like 40g? Will you set the price at the normal selling price of 14g pretty much assuring sales? Will you set a premium price and take advantage of the market but selling it for about 20g a stack? Obviously you will not set a price lower than the normal selling price because there is no point in loosing money that way. Setting the price point at a gouging 40g is ridiculous, no one will buy it because everyone knows the normal price and the stack will sit in the AH until someone is absolutely desperate for it. This could be a long wait and you loose money the longer it sits there, reposting it every couple of days. (Remember that there will be other people posting their stuff and they will easily undercut a price that is too high.) Your best strategy is to set the price slightly high but not so outrageous that people will not bite at it since it is in high demand. A 20% to 40% mark up in this situation is reasonable and everyone will understand you are getting a little more because of the situation and you will sell your stuff.

You post your stack and see the market is flooded

A flooded market is not uncommon. You see the pages of auctions for the same thing you are selling and the prices have dropped through the floor. Our Adders Tongue that usually sells at 14g a stack is now selling at 5g a stack. This is disheartening, but now you have to take a real close look at the prices and the size of the stacks being sold.

If the stacks are all large and you look at unit price and they drop steady you really are not in a position to sell and make a good return. In this case you should hold on to the mats and bank it until the price comes up. If on the other hand the stack are all small, say 1 and 2 each, price your mats at the normal price or even a 10% discount and wait, it will eventually sell because there really is not all that much on the market, it just looks like there is. ADVANCED TIP: If the prices are real low but the stacks are very small you have an interesting consideration here…. You could buy everything that is lower than your normal or discount price and the resell it all at your price. Since you will have bought everything at a lower price you can make a profit off the cheap goods and sell your stuff. That’s a Ka-Ching in my dictionary.

But why would people price stuff so low in the first place? Well simple; if you then post to undercut the cheap price, the person posting the cheap price will snap your sale up and later repost them at a nice profit. If you on the other hand buy all the cheap stuff and repost it at a normal price, the guy trying to screw people into undercutting will have made very little money for their work and you will come out on top just by selling normally.

You post and you see the price listings are around the normal price

This is the condition you will normally see. This is where you undercut your competitors by a couple percent and turn your profit.

Should I sell the raw mats or should I manufacture something?

Oddly enough this is a question I get asked a lot and it depends entirely on market conditions. It is really simple to figure out: add all your unit costs up (don’t forget AH cut) and subtract that from what you are going to sell it for. Then add up the sell price for the mats you have and subtract the AH cut. If the first is greater, make something and sell it. If not just sell the raw mats and be done with it. You would be surprised how often it is more advantageous to just sell the raw mats than bother to make anything from it. In fact I don’t bother checking to see if there is a profit from manufacturing something form my farmed mats any more, I just sell it all on the AH and forget about it.

Banking Mats

There comes a time that you will bank something rather than sell it because the price is too damned low for your taste. You have to remember that until you do sell it you will not have made any money. If the AH goes through a prolonged downturn on what you are selling you could fill a bank real fast. Eventually you could run out of space all together and then you are in a fix since until you clear space you will not be able to gather any more of the profitable mats. It is then time to find a way to use it or manufacture with it and hopefully make a profit. If you can’t figure out how to move it the it is time to dump it on the market.

Dumping on the market is not a lost per say but rather a less than vigorous return on your work. You are still making some money on your work, it just isn’t up to your standard. Find the lowest price on the market, and undercut it. Do not set a buyout price so people must bid on it. Somewhere down the line a speculator will bid them all (or maybe more than one bidding up the price) and you will see your return and free up your bags and bank to get on with more work. In this I would stop farming that particular item for a few days since the market is just too cheap and you can use your time and bag space on better mats. Once the market for that item evens out again you can farm it again.

As a general rule you should never bank anything you farm or manufacture. If it is banked it is not making you money and so what is the point. I can never understand when people run out of bank space on a farming toon. There should be very little in their banks and bags because they are not really playing character. I can understand it with playing characters to an extent, but still, there should never be a time you run out of space. YOUR BANK IS THE AH.

If you are using a playing character to farm you could consider making a “Banking” alt. This is a character that does nothing but stores things for your main character. If you are still in desperate need of space you could even start your own bank guild opening up a possible 700 more slots if you have the cash (and you should).

Lots of slots

The maximum number of slots on a character is 144. If you max out your bank and use specialized bags in the bank you can add another 256 slots. This means it is possible for a character to leverage 400 slots. If the character has a guild you can add 700 more for a total of 1100 slots. If you still need space after that you can start more banking toons, but really, I cannot see using more than 200 slots since you should be selling like a madman.

Multiple Characters

When you think about it the more characters you have the better you can do. Think about this:
1) Dungeon Raider (Provides Heirlooms)
2) Herbalist and Mining
3) Skinning and Leatherworker
4) Alchemy and Enchanting
5) Inscription and Jewelcrafting
6) Tailor and Blacksmithing
Since all can do cooking, fishing, and first aid there is no need to specialize these. But if you can work up all of these toons, you can then create 5 more toons to do whatever you want and pay practically nothing for potions, food, weapons, gear and enchants. Toon 1 then provides the heirlooms to get your farmer up and running faster. Toon 2 provides raw materials and cash for all other toons. Toons 3, 4, 5 and 6 can then provide more and more items needed by all the others. Toons 7-10 are for fun and experimentation. Have fun.

Leveling up professions

Farming toons should be leveled up as they are being brought up. It is not difficult to farm here and there as you are running around questing, just remember to do it. Obviously skinning is the absolute easiest to level while questing since you are killing things left and right anyway. Manufacturing professions I would suggest not bothering to level until level 60. At that point you can power level the profession in a few hours. Sure it cost some cash, but the time you save not leveling may be worth it.

Wrapping it up

When it comes down to it all of the stuff I have written about here is common sense. If you just take the time to think things through, experiment a little bit and stick to it you will find that you are successful and making a load of cash. Let’s face it, you don’t need millions or even hundreds of thousands, just enough to make your gaming experience fun without having to go to the gold sellers and pay $5 per 1000g.

Racism is very hard to define, but like pornography,

I KNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT...

... and I don’t lie

Do you drive? If so and you’re a resident on Nevada you also must have auto insurance. After all it’s the law.

Aside from the fact that here is a law mandating you to buy something you may or may not need or even may or may not be able to afford (which seems like a sweet deal for the insurance companies who can now provide inferior service for more money and will not be held accountable) there are other consequences implied just for owning a car in Nevada. Here is a little story of what I have been through.

Once upon a time there were a couple of months that I did not pay for my auto insurance. Why you ask? Was I strapped for money and still driving? Did I just want that new iPhone and took it out of my car insurance money? Nothing like that, I was simply out of town in another state and driving a rental that had insurance. During that time it seemed a waste of money to pay for insurance for a car that was garaged so I didn’t bother (times are tight after all). I bet you would have done the same. So now obviously my insurance lapsed, but so what, I renewed it as soon as I got back. So what’s the problem?

Fast forward six months…

On the way to work I am pulled over and given a ticket. Not for speeding, not for improper turns or even faulty equipment, but for SUSPENDED PLATES! I ask the officer what’s up and he explains the plates have been suspended for about 3 months. Now what he was doing running my plates when I had done nothing wrong is a question I wonder about, but the only thing on the citation was for suspended plates. “It’s a fix it ticket and you won’t be fined if you take care of it…” was his exact words. Boy was that wrong.

Onward to the DMV to find out what happened. Well it seems that because my insurance lapsed for the two months I mentioned above my plates were suspended. What? Excuse me I was not even in the state and the car was garaged, why did I have to pay for a service that I was not using? I stopped my cable and newspaper for the same time, no problem there. Didn’t matter, if you own a car in the state the car must me insured whether it is used or not. Really? That makes no sense, what about display cars? What about non-operable cars? Turns out if I wanted to lapse my insurance for two months I would have had to come down to the DMV and fill out a form informing them of the dates (as if I would have known the dates for my travel) then come back and fill out another form to reinstate the insurance. All of this is at no charge other than standing in line for about 4 hour each time. No thank you. If this is available online I was not informed but I COULD NOT FIND THIS ONLINE. Upshot: It cost me $250 to get my plates out of suspense and I renewed them while I was at it so I didn’t get pulled over for expired plates.

What is really messed up is the timeline this all happened in. First there was the lapse of insurance for two months. Two months AFTER that the DMV sent out a card that said my plates were suspended. When I card went out I had insurance. That card was return by the postal service as if I had moved; I had not. The problem with the postal service is a completely different rant, but one not quite on point here, although I do blame the Post Office for this mess. Please note that there is no warning, no attempt to correct the situation, just an arbitrary suspension of my plates even though I was insured at the time of the suspension. The suspension period is in no way overlapping the time I was actually uninsured (which would make sense). It’s sorta like whacking your dog in the nose with a rolled up DMV Ordinance Book two months after the cat dropped the dead bird in the kitchen. The dog did nothing wrong, what was wrong was easily solved, and the punishment was completely overblown when the event had been completely forgotten and never even really noted in the first place.

Now to phase two, dealing with the courts over this.

There are two sets of windows at the court house when dealing with tickets, municipal court and all others. This was a municipal court ticket and the line moved slow, I mean really slow. You would watch then numbers being called slowly and between each one it seemed the clerks would take a break between each one. Some would literally just sit there waiting for the number called to come up, some times up to 5 minutes without someone coming before they finally got the idea that no-one was coming. Sometimes they would chat with the clerk in the next window over, now two windows not helping anyone. It was criminal while a hundred people waited to be called. Oh, and wouldn’t you know the other windows moved about 10 times faster, I did the math.

Anyway I finally get to the window and show all the paper work and am told: Another $350 for the courts time. WHAT??? I was told this was a fix it ticket, here it’s fixed. Nope, the court fees were $350 dollar for something that I fixed, that was not a problem in the first place, that I was not informed about because the Post Office screwed up (BTW, I got confirmation on this and was able to prove residency but it did not matter). “Well sir, you can always tell it to the judge…” came for the bored clerk. Well, I had invested a lot of time in this so far, and in fact if you include the $250 and $350 it would have been a lot cheaper to have continued the insurance than to put up with all this, but in for a penny in for a pound and I was given a court date a month later.

The final phase, getting before a judge.

So down to the courts I go. Remember those lines I had to sit in for the ticket the first time? Well I had to sit in them again just to get on that days docket. Yep another wait that would render the most sane person questionable after it. Then after I got on the docket… “Come back at 3pm but be here at 2pm to check in and wait again.” I had cleared the whole day for this… I was right to have done it. Ridiculous.

I will skip the line to check in and then the line to get in and then the wait for the court to come to session (30 MINUTES LATE) and move on to what I should plea. This is an interesting question. I was indeed driving on suspended plates, but the plates should never have been suspended in the first place. Guilt? No, again, the plates should not have been suspended in the first place. No contest? Same as guilty right? Not guilty? Well this would at least let me state my case. Then I am interrupted in this reverie and find out this is just a hearing court and if I state “Not Guilty” I would have to come back again. Again… all this because some stupid DMV ordinance that is very faulty suspended my plates…

Quite frankly I could not afford to take another day to deal with this, so with the taste of disgust in my mouth I plead “No contest” and was not given a chance to talk, and the judge knocked $100 off the court costs.

Total fines, fees, and time lost from work for this whole Megillah: $806
Cost for two months insurance: $248

One of the things that I noticed though were how many people seemed to be in the same predicament. In the session I sat in on there were at least 7 others with the same suspended plates issue. This really makes me think… So, did the DMV suspend plates without notice on purpose to raise revenues? Were the police asked to run as many plates as they could to catch as many people as possible with this scam? It seems far fetched but oddly doable. If you think about it this is possible. What amazes me when you think about it is how many people really got caught in the scam and never made it this far? How many just paid all the fines and never really thought the whole thing through. Now what I wonder is how many other scams are there to raise revenues off the shady dealings of the DMV.

I think it would be fair to say that the majority of players in WoW who farm do not mind sharing the resources of a server. Anyone who has farmed Sholazar Basin for herbs knows that the competition for herbs is huge, but that is fine because of the abundant number of herb nodes. It is when certain elements come into an area to farm that players get upset. More about that later.

Here are a couple of things to think about:

1) Farm all you like, but if there is another person near or on top of the node you want to farm pass it by, there are always other herbs.

2) It is not worth getting upset about loosing one or two herbs to another more aggressive player. They may not have seen you, or they may think you were at a particular location for some other reason. So, be understanding, it is only one or two herbs after all.

3) Topping off: Don’t: This is when players have full bags and are filling out the secondary harvests. We all can agree the Crystallized Life, Deadnettle, and Frost Lotus are good money makers, but when you farm for these leaving the primary herb (Gold Clover, Adder’s Tongue, and Tiger Lily) the node does not regenerate secondary herbs. Please take everything from the herb so the regeneration will spawn new secondary herbs. And here is something to think about; if you farmed 100 nodes and came up with say 5 Frost Lotus (doing very well) and never take the primary herb, if you were to visit those herbs again you would get NO Frost Lotus because the nodes did not respawn. If you only want the seconds, take the whole thing then literally dump the rest, or better yet sell it. Better for you, better for me, better for everyone.

4) Flight paths: If you spot another farmer, don’t follow them. Be polite, turn off and find another patch of herbs and farm those. I know it’s annoying when I run into the same person over and over again in the same general flight path as mine.

5) He who lands first gets the herb. If you run into a situation where you are going for the same herb as another farmer or two or three, the guy who lands first should get it and all other should leave and let him have it. Think of this as the right of way at a stop sign when driving.

What’s a Bot?

A bot in terms of WoW is any player using specialized macros, addons, or third party programs to run their character for them. Sometimes these bots run AFK and sometimes there is an operator watching. In any case running a character as a bot is against the WoW EULA but that does not stop anything. Most of these bots are farming bots. They can farm herbs, ores, skins, or specific drops. Generally they are then selling on the market (after offloading to a bank alt) for gold to use for a main, or to sell on the grey market for cash. Needless to say if there is real money involved these bots don’t give a damn about you and fairness in the game, all they want are the resources.

Spotting a Bot

Spotting a bot is really not too hard. If you watch them they will land on an herb perfectly every time they land. I don’t know about you, but after doing this a while I can land on a node perfectly, but far from every time, human reactions are just not that good. So, if they land perfectly every time you see them, they are likely a bot.

Another giveaway is speed. Now I know we can add haste to our characters, but it is no match for clock ticks on a computer. The average person will spend about 8-12 seconds per gather (land, locate and click the herb, call your mount again, and go) but bots will do this even faster by the several seconds we humans use to process.

Generally bots are not chatty, so if you say something about them in local they ignore it. You can even whisper them and they ignore you simply because there is no one watching to respond. Some of the newer bots will respond and give you some generalized reply to simulate being real. The simplest way to catch these bots is to ask a specific question requiring a specific answer. If you do not like the answer, they are a bot.

One thing to remember is that sometimes these bots do have operators watching and so will start up a conversation. Just because they are chatty does not mean they are not using bot programs. If confronted the operators will almost always point out that they are not running third party programs or that Blizz couldn’t know they are running third party programs. Sticking with the premise “me thinks thou protests too much”, they are probably bots. If other characters stick up for the confronted suspected bot, it is likely that they are the same player using different accounts to protect the bot. Remember, for the person doing the bot it may be a business and they have many ways of protecting their money source. Finally the suspected bot will either leave the area to farm some other patch or simply go offline until things cool down. The last thing a bot wants is to have Blizz look at them and find out what is going on.

For me it is the bots in the game that really screw up the dynamics of the game. It is only logical that players will farm in a game that has an economy but when the resources are artificially stretched because of farming, the game dynamic is effected and the relaxing pastime of farming becomes frustrating and players become stressed. The last thing Blizz wants is stressed players.

A Word on Druids

It has now become apparent that if you want to farm you should be a druid that has a flight form. Since it seems you can gather without having to dismount and remount, you cut time on herb by probably 3- 6 seconds increasing your gather rate substantially. I am wondering if this is fair. Personally I think that Blizz should not allow the ability to gather when in a different form to equalize the game. As it stands being a druid gives them an innate advantage in farming. But being a Druid that sorta makes sense. Or does it?

Governor Sanford of South Carolina was in Argentina getting it on with his mistress and not out hiking the Appalachian Trail. Did anyone really think he was out hiking? Really? Honestly I really do not care if he was hiking or having an orgy with under aged boys, it is not my business nor anyone else’s. What is bothering me is that Republicans who espouse to be so strongly for family values are now supporting the Governor as if the family values that they hold so dear are only values when it is convenient. Republican representatives are instead praising the Governor for making public the affair as if confessing the sin makes it all ok. That may work in church, but last I checked a freely given confession still ends you up in jail in the courts of South Carolina.

I just don’t get it, the hypocrisy I mean. I thought hypocrisy was a sin and the republican we so strongly right wing that these sort of flip flopping would be counter to dogma.

The republican need to get in agreement, throw Sanford under the bus and get on with it. He needs to be the first pariah of the new political age. While you are at it add Ensign and Stevens to the spot under the bus and move on and be consistent.

Now we are looking at days of coverage about a stupid news item.

I am a movie fan. Anyone who really knows me knows that for me the cinema is the best escape from day to day life. They also know that I got this from my grandfather who would pick me up in an ugly faded green Nash Rambler every week. We would stop by the local Thrifty Drug and pick up candy to sneak in (he had a trick jacket just for this with holes in the pockets so could load up the lining with goodies) and we would go to the movies. He was always careful to be sure we got our drinks and popcorn (which we did sometimes) telling me “this is where they make their money, so get something so they stay in business”. I learned then that the ticket price went right back to the studios, concessions went to the theaters. But even back then a 15¢ Hershey Bar was $.95 and that was outrageous (and this was before “movie sized” candy). We never really paid much attention to the Oscars other than it was cool to see if we had seen any of the ones that won awards. I was always amazed that with him we ALWAYS saw the best picture of the year. He would call that one and never got it wrong.

My sister was never into the movies as much as me and my grandfather, but apparently every year she goes away for an Oscar Weekend. She does the whole spa treatment and pampering and then goes to her hotel room and indulges in the Oscars. It’s as good an excuse as any for a get away, she certainly enjoys it.

Certainly in our house Oscar night was special. The whole family would get special dispensation from mom to stay up late and complain how slow they handed out the awards. How, “damn it, it’s 11:35 and they still haven’t handed out Best Picture?” would pass my fathers lips as he nodded off in the big chair every year. It was they only night of the year my mother would burn popcorn for us to munch on (thank god for copious amounts of melted margarine). It was not until I was in my teens that we would actually try to predict who would win what category and that sort of added a new edge to the show. It was all luck for most part, but it was fun. So in that light, here are my picks for the 2009 Oscars in order how they are presented on the Oscars Website (sorta):

Best Actor: Frank Langella Sean Penn (hardest pick all night)
Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger
Best Actress: Kate Winslet (she’s due)
Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz

Best Director: Slumdog Millionaire (an unusual split from Best Actor / Picture)
Best Picture: Frost / Nixon (I went with what I thought was best...)

Best Animated Feature: WALL-E (better message than KFP)
Art Direction: Benjamin Button
Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire (should be Button)
Costume Design: Austrailia Dutchess
Editing: The Dark Knight Slumdog, undeserved
Makeup: Benjamin Button (should The Dark Knight though)
Music/Song: Slumdog Millionaire
Score: Slumdog Millionaire
Sound Editing: The Dark Knight
Sound Mixing: Wanted Slumdog, this was just wrong
Visual Effects: Iron Man Benjamin Button
Adapted Screenplay: Doubt Slumdog
Original Screenplay: MILK (should be WALL-E)

I did not do all of them simply because I have not seen “best foreign film” or “animated short”.

I know my list looks very different from what a lot of the critics are saying, but I think that while this year had a lot of very good films there was no one stand out that everyone was going to say was “it”. No one film brought every element of film making to perfection in my opinion. Also, I do not think that just feeling good about a movie is a reason to call it a “best picture”. With all this in mind I have to remember who is voting on the nominees, it is the film industry and not the critics and the Academy often feels different from the critics who are usually full of hot air when it comes to understanding the movies they are watching. So my picks are from years of Academy Watching; I could be right, I could be wrong, but if I am right this is going to be an interesting year at the Oscars.

After about a year of taking online courses I have to wonder what exactly I am learning and why colleges bother to hire professors.

In all the classes I am taking the curriculum is based on whatever textbook is chosen as appropriate for the course. In the case of the college I am going to (which is in most respects a traditional “students attend in person” college) the college has taken the idea of choosing texts one step further and have chosen a publisher to provide the courses of study taught at the college. So in effect is not the publisher of the texts then the professors at the college? Are not the authors of the text the experts that should be teaching the classes that I want to attend?

As it stands, the professors at the college present students with a text, they read from the text and supposedly create assignments and projects based on the text. However, the assignments could indeed be created by the text authors, projects put together by the publishers, and finally all the quizzes and exams written by the publishers and authors. If this is the case, why are we bothering to hire professors? What exactly do they bring to the learning experience that is not already provided by the text authors and publishers?

It was always my understanding that colleges were places of higher learning. I thought higher learning was something more creative than just reading a book and parroting the facts back. So where is that creative higher learning? I want to be there; I want to think about things that are new and cutting edge. I thought that professors were people who invoked original thought from their students? I thought college and professors passed on ideas that may not be published, examined, determined, judged, argued, written down, scrutinized, re-examined in various editions, judged again and finally just accepted. Isn’t there supposed to be an original thought somewhere? Weren’t professors the gardeners of human knowledge? Weren’t students supposed to be the fertile soil tended by professors in which new ideas grew? Where is that? What if the texts are wrong?

Seriously, with the current teaching in college you might as well get high school teachers to teach the subjects. There is no point in paying professors with letters behind their names if they are not going to teach something other than what is written in the textbooks. After all, is that not why you hired the professor with letters after their names in the first place, to teach something new, to bring a new perspective to the subject, a fresh way of looking at something, to explore their ideas and promote “higher learning”?

Recently I asked the following question to my “online professors”:

Please forgive the perceived sarcasm, but I have been taking online classes now for a year and it seems that there is very little “taught” in these classes that you could not get by buying the book, reading it and doing the review. So, what is it that you, as a professor, offer me in terms of value add to this course of education aside from accreditations?

Not one of the professors could answer this question. The least answer I was expecting was “guidance” or ‘expertise”; but even these answers did not arrive. This is interesting when you think about it. I am taking classes to get my BA in Secondary Education with an emphasis in computer programming and fine arts and I have already thought about this question and I know what I would answer if this question were asked of me. My answer:

I hope to bring to the student a new and fresh way of looking at a subject beyond what may be written in any textbook. I bring years of experience in the business world and an understanding of what may be expected in a career in programming or fine arts that is just not written about in any text. I have analytical skills that help me to understand what it is you need to learn better and more fully. My goal is to give you the student tools that you can use and be successful with. Hopefully my experience and ways of understanding things can help you. I am here to help you be successful and creative.

I think my answer is pretty good. I think that when a student eventually asks me that question he/she will be happy with my answer. I think at that point my having letters behind my name is not proof that I read the books, but rather, a signal that I have added to the world in some way and this is recognized with degrees. I hope to inspire new minds and tend to new ideas encouraging them to grow.

Right now I have to go back to work and read more textbooks and not really learn anything at all, just dedicate to memory information that will be forgotten about 5 minutes after the exam that must be taken in order to get my credits for the degree that will be earned on information that is fugitive and really not needed for anything that I will be doing in the future.

Someone hand me a #2 pencil.

This is a work of fiction based on an online game I play called EVE. You can find out more about it by clicking on the banner to the right of this article.

The Icarus Effect

Brother Ivannois knew he could not advance within his order until he had attempted and lived through the Icarus Effect; a dream state induced by a triple dose of the Sooth Sayer Booster. He had already transferred his pod to a tricked out Condor, a very fast and nimble ship. He was told that he should use the fastest ship he could afford and one that maneuvered as best as he could withstand; it would all add to the effect and make survival easier. He tipped the booster into cerebral feed two.

The ship was ejected from the station; he invoked the booster for the first time.

The contraband fluid coursed through the tubes feeding the cerebral implants and he slipped seamlessly from consciousness to a light trance, ships sensors feeding his heightened awareness. Every ship outside the station became known to him, his sense of their movement and trajectories became an intricate dance. He moved the ship with but a thought now, a thought to dance with the ships around him. In his diminished awareness he knew he had to continue the experience to the Icarus Effect. He willed his disembodied hand to boost again, something not normally done.

The second dose of Sooth Sayer hit his brain and the ship he was in was gone. Ivannois was floating in space, aware of all the ships, stations, asteroids, planets and even space junk that moved and surrounded him. He shot from ship to ship to junk to container floating in space with the ease of walking, easier in fact. He examined each for their queer beauty and moved on, finally making a huge jump to explore the moon that the station he’d left orbited.

In preparing for this experience he had rigged a special circuit that would deliver the final dose of the booster if he was too far into the experience to remember. The third and final dose hit and his living dream-world became his reality.

Spaced shredded. Ivannois was no longer in an open reality, but one where the very folds of the universe could be experienced. He was ripping his way through psychotically hued ripples heading toward the undulating and pulsating sphere that was a moon. He could feel his hand grasping the folds and pulling him along; his feet were kicking as if swimming, impelling him forward, and the wings on his back steered him to his destination, cutting through gossamer sheets of space; wakes of rippling light from his travels could be seen behind him. As he looked something new caught his eye, something scintillating.

He turned his back to the moon he was heading for and stopped to appraise the gem in the cosmic kaleidoscope he was now part of. He began to reach for the radiant object, his desire now fixed on it. Ivannois was convinced if he could possess the glorious object he could completely escape from the universe and find a permanent Nirvana of his own. So strong was the feeling he flung his unfettered body at the star unmindful of any ill effect.

The chromatic display of folded space as he approached was strong and blinding, but that mattered not in the least to Ivannois whose fascination overwhelmed any remenents of his caution. He felt in his heart that all his questions would be answered as the miasma of light and complex space surrounded and overwhelmed him. The universe faded to white…

Brother Ivannois awoke several hours later, the pain in his head so tragic he could barely stand it; but that was nothing compared to the despair he felt for not reaching his utopia. He read the ship logs and found that the ship had automatically returned him to a safe spot when the ship entered into the corona of the star and the armor plating began melting off.

Brother Ivannois sat in his pod and wept.