Daaaaang

I had high hopes. I looked at the glyph market and thought, "hmm, I bet with the 4.0.1 patch, there will be a pretty big surge in demand for glyphs moving forward." I gambled.

For the two weeks running up to the patch, I stockpiled inks, bought the market clean on herbs, and even bought out my competitor glyphstock. For those two weeks, I only sold glyphs that I could list at 30g or more, and I used the profits from those sales to further buy up more market share. On the weekend before the patch, I pulled my entire stock so I could figure out just what I had. I also took this opportunity to create two more storefront alts- with three alts, you can have one stack of each glyph in inventory without running to the bank.

By the time Monday night rolled around, I had at least 20 copies of each glyph in the game, with at least 30 of each of the Death Knight and Paladin glyphs. I had more in certain glyphs, approximately 30% of the market was below 10g, I bought all of those.

I went into this two week rush of activity at about 20k gold, give or take. I took all the profits I had made from the runup (about 4k) and reinvested them back into the Plan, and I ended up eating about an additional 3500 gold out of my principal buying out my competitors.

That's where I started on Monday night: 16,618 gold, and about 7800 auctions posted. I didn't want to go too far below 15k, as that would be my safety net for Cataclysm and 310% flight and all that jazz. I also was not able to play straight up to server shutdown, as I was visiting friends, and also had to get up fairly early on Tuesday morning. So I didn't quite have the market cornered, but I went to bed Monday night feeling like I could do okay.

I posted all my glyphs at 40g each. No undercutting, no price inflation. Just a flat 40g, 48 hour duration. I figured that there would be enough demand to eat through undercutters, and the new nerfing to automatic auction posting would probably keep supplies relatively low.

It has been 48 hours since the initial posting. I have collected all my mail of expired glyphs and gold from sales. It took over four hours to collect all my mail and relist all my auctions- I am keeping the same posting plan for now, as I predict a fair amount of constant demand until well after the weekend, as people get back into the game, finish downloading, and importantly, get around to glyphing their alts. I have not resupplied my markets yet, as I'm low on ink and don't have the time to mill / queue / post right now.

An aside: ZeroAuctions is the successor to QuickAuctions. Go to curse, get it. Yes, there's more clicking now, but there's nothing to do about that. Canceling in particular kind of sucks.

The big reveal- after 48 hours of sales? Well, really more like 36 hours of sales?

There we are. About 65,000 g in revenue. Pull out the (approximately) 9,000g in expenses incurred during the runup, and I'm at about 56,000 in profit. Not bad for a few day's work. I have since reposted a LOT of glyphs, I'll see where we stand after the weekend is over. All in all, I'm glad I made the gamble.

EDIT: After scanning the AH, it seems like I'm sold out of a few glyphs, but after scanning the AH it also seems like there's no herbs to be had at all. So I'm going to have to be happy with what I've got listed, which is probably a good plan. After next weekend (probably after the tuesday maintenance) I'll go back to a regular posting regime - 2 of each with undercuts and 48h duration, with quasi-regular repostings to keep undercuts current, until I can sell through all my existing stock. Then I'll take account and decide if I should retire or not.

The Cataclysm Crystal Ball

Looking deep into my crystal ball, I see...   Wait, this is a magic 8 ball. Well, that sucks. I will have to use logic and reason instead. Yikes.

Well, here goes.

Frostweave. Bags and cloth. That's today's prediction.

When cataclysm launches, and for the next month or more afterward, frostweave bags will be pretty profitable again. First, people will want bags for their new goblins and such. Most people will remember their heirlooms prelaunch, but will forget to stock up on bags. Demand++

Second, almost the entire population of currently-80 toons will be headed to the new zones, where no frostweave drops. The new crop of alts will take a while to get to northrend, and once there won't stay for long. Supply--

But wait, you ask, what about the new tailoring bags?

I'm glad you asked. Simply put, the scarcity of new cloth, low number of powerleveling tailors, and demand for the new bag on 85 mains will price that bag well out of the range of alt supplies for a while.

But wait, you ask, what about netherweave bags?

Good point. My understanding of consumer psychology tells me most people will go for frostweave, but it wouldn't hurt to take a look at netherweave too. Watch both markets.

Right now, on my server, frostweave bags sell for about 45g. After cataclysm launches, I'd expect to see prices go up to 70-80 gold apiece. Much more than that and people will stop buying them in favor of cheaper smaller bags, but that's still enough room to play with the market and turn a tidy little profit.

Inscription, next week.

Or whenever. The big deal is that these are the changes we can expect in 4.0.1.

I've said it before: I predict a huge run on glyphs when 4.0.1 goes live. People will compulsively buy complete sets of glyphs (the new interface even shows which ones are missing, leaving big gray holes in the screen, which compels people to buy), and a lot of the glyphs are changing in their utility. People who haven't played in a while will come back to the game. People will buy sets of glyphs for their alts. It's going to be crazy. So, prepare yourself.

I've shamelessly snatched and reformatted this from Ro's post on the blizzard forums.

All glyphs require 3 inks to make instead of 1 so fill your stock up now. Do not wait for patch day, because your inks will make 1/3 as many glyphs on that day.

• Many glyphs are changing to new glyphs. If the itemid is being recycled, they will convert in your bags to the new glyph.
• Many glyphs are being removed and have no replacement, they'll magically change to [Charred Glyph]s vendor trash (50s sell price). Liquidate your position in these glyphs ASAP, but remember that after the patch, their vendor price increases to 50s (basic glyph vendor price is 1s). So if someone else is liquidating them for less than 50s and you have bag space, buy them now and vendor them later.
• You'll be able to train a few new glyphs, which use inks available today: Glyph of Blind, Glyph of Feral Charge, Glyph of Intercept, Glyph of Faerie Fire, Glyph of Tiger's Fury.
• Glyph of Living Bomb is unclear at this point - the current glyph of living bomb is being converted to a glyph of slow, and the new one might come from research.
• The glyph of colossus smash is trained, but requires blackfallow ink.
• Jessica Sellers treats Ink of the Sea as the top-tier ink in 4.0, but in Cataclysm it's Blackfallow ink (so you cannot trade in Ink of the Sea after cataclysm, but can after 4.0).
• Similarly, there are two "erasing powder" recipes available to scribes. One requires midnight ink, and one requires blackfallow ink. This is the reagent that scribes make which allows players to juggle their glyphs. My theory is that the midnight ink version will be available from 4.0, but disabled when cataclysm goes live. So stock up on some cheapie herbs and make a bunch of midnight ink if you can- erasing powder may well get overlooked in the rush.

Glyphs becoming charred glyphs (vendor trash):

• Glyph of Arcane Explosion
• Glyph of Barbaric Insults
• Glyph of Dark Command
• Glyph of Disease
• Glyph of Fire Blast
• Glyph of Fire Ward
• Glyph of Icebound Fortitude
• Glyph of Last Stand
• Glyph of Mage Armor
• Glyph of Mana Gem
• Glyph of Possessed Strength
• Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation
• Glyph of Scorch
• Glyph of Siphon Life
• Glyph of Survival Instincts
• Glyph of Taunt
• Glyph of Unholy Blight
• Glyph of Volley

Glyphs changing to new glyphs

Glyph of Aspect of the Viper -> Glyph of Concussive Shot
Glyph of Avenger's Shield -> Glyph of Focused Shield
Glyph of Avenging Wrath -> Glyph of the Ascetic Crusader
Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom -> Glyph of Insight
Glyph of Blocking -> Glyph of Shield Slam
Glyph of Blood Strike -> Glyph of Blood Boil
Glyph of Bloodrage -> Glyph of Berserker Rage
Glyph of Bloodthirst -> Glyph of Bloody Healing
Glyph of Charge -> Glyph of Long Charge
Glyph of Claw -> Glyph of Ferocious Bite
Glyph of Corpse Explosion -> Glyph of Path of Frost
Glyph of Curse of Agony -> Glyph of Bane of Agony
Glyph of Dark Death -> Glyph of Death Coil
Glyph of Divine Storm -> Glyph of Templar's Verdict
Glyph of Enraged Regeneration -> Glyph of Intimidating Shout
Glyph of Eternal Water -> Glyph of Mana Shield
Glyph of Execution -> Glyph of Bloodthirst
Glyph of Explosive Trap -> Glyph of Master's Call
Glyph of Flash of Light -> Glyph of Word of Glory
Glyph of Frost Armor -> Glyph of Conjuring
Glyph of Frost Trap -> Glyph of Ice Trap
Glyph of Frost Ward -> Glyph of the Monkey
Glyph of Ghostly Strike -> Glyph of Revealing Strike
Glyph of Growl -> Glyph of Solar Beam
Glyph of Hamstring -> Glyph of Piercing Howl
Glyph of Heroic Strike -> Glyph of Heroic Throw
Glyph of Holy Light -> Glyph of Divine Favor
Glyph of Hunger for Blood -> Glyph of Vendetta
Glyph of Hunter's Mark -> Glyph of Misdirection
Glyph of Hymn of Hope -> Glyph of Divine Accuracy
Glyph of Ice Armor -> Glyph of Pyroblast
Glyph of Lava -> Glyph of Lava Burst
Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave -> Glyph of Totemic Recall
Glyph of Living Bomb -> Glyph of Slow
Glyph of Mana Tide Totem -> Glyph of Grounding Totem
Glyph of Mind Control -> Glyph of Psychic Horror
Glyph of Mind Sear -> Glyph of Spirit Tap
Glyph of Mocking Blow -> Glyph of Demoralizing Shout
Glyph of Multi-Shot -> Glyph of Silencing Shot
Glyph of Nourish -> Glyph of Starsurge
Glyph of Pestilence -> Glyph of Resilient Grip
Glyph of Plague Strike -> Glyph of Pestilence
Glyph of Quick Decay -> Glyph of Lash of Pain
Glyph of Raise Dead -> Glyph of Raise Ally
Glyph of Remove Curse -> Glyph of Cone of Cold
Glyph of Rending -> Glyph of Slam
Glyph of Righteous Defense -> Glyph of Righteousness
Glyph of Seal of Command -> Glyph of Rebuke
Glyph of Seal of Light -> Glyph of Seal of Insight
Glyph of Seal of Righteousness -> Glyph of Dazing Shield
Glyph of Seal of Vengeance -> Glyph of Seal of Truth
Glyph of Seal of Wisdom -> Glyph of Light of Dawn
Glyph of Searing Pain -> Glyph of Soul Swap
Glyph of Sense Undead -> Glyph of Truth
Glyph of Shadow -> Glyph of Power Word: Barrier
Glyph of Shield of Righteousness -> Glyph of Shield of the Righteous
Glyph of Spiritual Attunement -> Glyph of Divine Protection
Glyph of Succubus -> Glyph of Seduction
Glyph of Totem of Wrath -> Glyph of Shamanistic Rage
Glyph of Trueshot Aura -> Glyph of Kill Command
Glyph of Unbreakable Armor -> Glyph of Pillar of Frost
Glyph of Vanish -> Glyph of Poisons
Glyph of Vigilance -> Glyph of Furious Sundering
Glyph of Vigor -> Glyph of Kick
Glyph of Water Elemental -> Glyph of Dragon's Breath
Glyph of Water Mastery -> Glyph of Water Shield
Glyph of Water Shield -> Glyph of the Arctic Wolf
Glyph of Whirlwind -> Glyph of Raging Blow
Glyph of the Beast -> Glyph of Trap Launcher
Glyph of the Ghoul -> Glyph of Raise Dead
Glyph of the Hawk -> Glyph of the Dazzled Prey
Glyph of the Pack -> Glyph of Aspect of the Pack
Glyph of the Wise -> Glyph of Justice

And that's it. Good luck in the changeover. Personally, I've withdrawn most of my glyphs from sale right now. I want to have the stock to survive the run on Tuesday.

A last hint for people who got this far: if you're stocking up, remember that post-patch glyphs will require 3 inks to craft. Which means any glyph that is currently selling for less than 3x ink cost is likely to be worth buying prepatch. I've crafted a TON of glyphs that I think will be useful, but I'm also supplementing my stock by purchasing a lot of glyphs from the sub-5g market. At that point, it's easier to buy stuff up than to mill-trade-craft. I've got an extra bank alt ready for overflow stock even.

The sky, it is falling!

So, 4.0 is around the corner. Probably next week. One thing that will happen is big guilds will not be able to recruit anymore until their membership roster is below 600 characters (not players). This is a bummer for the big guilds like Taint and AIE that kind of pulled off the huge community thing very well. Even the moderately-large guilds like It came from the blog will be hamstrung. And yeah- just split into subguilds and use guild2guild to link your chats together, fine. Still it sucks.

That doesn't suck as much as the Auction House crippling that just happened in beta 13131. In this, all my fears came true- they changed the StartAuction() function to protected and requiring a hardware event. That means, if you want to post an auction, you have to click. You don't have to use blizzard's lousy interface (blech), but you can't say, "post everything in my bag" and walk away like you can with Quick Auctions now. I imagine that Auctioneer's appraiser interface is still okay, since that just uses one call to StartAuction() every time you press the button, but it does mean the Batch Post functionality in Auctioneer is broken too.

I'm sure this is a shot across the bow of people like me, who cancel and repost auctions. Cancel-repost strategies (or just repeatedly posting a small number of stacks with a big stock and undercutting the market and letting your previously-undercut auctions expire) sort of require automation in order to maintain profitability. I don't mind sitting at my computer for an hour while processing mail and auctions because I am more or less alt-tabbed the whole time, doing other stuff and occasionally returning when the process is finished.

The real bummer here is that while this change is likely to push people like me out of the market, it will not be good for the purchaser at all. There will be less amateur competition for AH markets, so prices will probably trend upwards (who is going to post 2000 glyph auctions at 1g profit per auction if they have to actually click 2000 times? might as well go farm mobs). The people who will stay competitive in the auction house will either have illegal software automation (like it's all that hard to have a secondary program simulating a click every 5 seconds) or they will have human automation (dudes getting paid $1.00 an hour to sit and click). Either way, this change is likely to see more gold getting into the hands of goldsellers.

Of course, it's all a big reverse psychology goldsink. Blizzard is keeping a handle on mudflation more-or-less, but they want things to get better. So instead of adding regular gold sinks (like Old Weather Flying or something - yeah, I know its a couple hundred gold, but it could easily be 5k gold instead), they just set up market conditions so that gold sellers are running most of the AH. Then, when they descend on the sellers and confiscate all their stock, they take all the gold out of circulation.

Elegant, really.

I'm happy that I was planning on retiring anyway. I'm working on a stopgap addon to post glyphs between 4.0 and Cat, mainly because I think it's likely there will be a HUGE demand surge at 4.0 when everybody buys one of each glyph (for all their alts no less), but after that, I'm out of the market. Too much work.

Until the next big thing comes along and I'm back in. You know how it goes.