Monday, November 28, 2011

Art Imitates Life?

The random image of my druid at level 80 during Naxx progression is for Flux with PowerWord: Gold from his "10 Tips For Starting A Gold-Making Blog." (Power Word: Gold

I've decided to start a short blog to give me a format on which to place ideas I have without having to edit videos for YouTube and trying to fit my ideas into a tweet. I had bounced around the idea of a blog for about a month but wasn't sure I wanted to be committed to the project because I am terrible with management of my free time. I've finally convinced myself I don't have to compete with "the big boys" to get my ideas out there and those we start this thing...



My catchy title is a reference to the fact I've been thinking about several ways that WoW economic advice mirrors real world economic advice although clearly the two cannot be put directly side by side.


Money in the mattress does nothing for you


I believe the first advice anyone gets in Econ101 is money buried in your backyard or in your mattress isn't doing anything except probably losing value. The classic make your money work for you argument is at play where ideally you want extra money invested somewhere. While this might be a dream to the lower middle class like myself juggling bills paycheck to paycheck it certainly holds far more relevance in WoW. Except maybe farming something and then directly selling it on the AH - most things you do for money are going to require some currency upfront and for you to make decisions on how to spend your money. As more and more of your investments start returning money you'll find you have more than enough on hand for your needs.


Don't put all your eggs in one basket


The opposite extreme to hoarding every penny in a jar is throwing all your cash into something and then having that investment blow up in your face. When you don't have much gold to start with you may find yourself having to keep the bulk of it invested into whatever you've chosen to make money on. It is important at point to make many small purchases instead of throwing your hard earned 5k into making glyphs only to discover that there are several glyph makers on your server that AH camp 24/7 or buying up those vanilla materials and finding out no one wants them. As you build some wealth you can loosen the reins gradually on what risks you want to take. Which leads you too..


The more money you have the easier it becomes to get more


There is an almost mystical snowballing effect that happens when you have money and use it wisely. Don't be discouraged when it takes you a month to turn 1k into 10k. There is a slow ramp up to getting larger and larger amounts of return. In the real world you may never get the opportunity to advance too far financially for whatever the reason may be, but in WoW everyone can turn 1 gold into a million gold the secret ingredient added on to smart choices and know-how is simply time. You'll be stung less when an investment falls through, you'll be in a position to take riskier chances on a gold scheme, and you'll be more prepared to take full advantage of those rare time to time opportunities to cash in big.


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I will be testing the waters on this blog thing for a bit and would appreciate any feedback from those that reach the page. You can reach me here in the comments, on Twitter @formerruling, and on my YouTube channel FormerRuling

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