MIA

Well if you have noticed I have been MIA for a bit. Real life has taken its toll on me and the blog has suffered. I will be getting back to The Brimbane Report next week and hope to keep it going without interuption. 

Brimbane Out

The Brimbane Report #10

Well here I am at post number 10 of The Brimbane Report and have yet to reach level 80. I am sitting at level 79 very under geared and not really interested  in leveling. Why you ask? It all has to do with professions. I have been working non stop on leveling alchemy and archeology in the hopes of getting the vial of the sands drop. I have gotten archeology up to 435 and have picked up some nice rares including the fossil raptor mount and pet but have yet to find a dig site in Uldum.  Alchemy is sitting at 509 and I hope to max it out in a day or so. Buying mats from the Auction House has hit my pocketbook but I will soon see a reversal once it is maxed and herbs and cool downs can be sold. I can now harvest Whiptail so with a little farming I can turn a nice profit from selling the stacks I'm not using. As far as making gold I am still selling recipes from gadetzan for a nice profit. I have set a goal for myself that before next weeks post I will not only hit 80 but 85. Its a stretch but I am going to try, then I can work on stockpiling gold.

Brimbane Out!

The Brimbane Report #9

Welcome to our 9th posting of the Brimbane Report this week I want to talk about farming herbs. I hit level 75 this week and now I am able to train to be an illustrious grand master herbalist. But I know what your saying your only 75 why and how are you going to get all those cataclysm herbs. The secret is this I'm a druid. The ability to gather herbs without leaving flight form is the greatest advantage you have as a druid farmer. The other key to this is that at level 75 I have not phased any of the new areas and can grab most of the herbs with ease. I would suggest to anyone that has not began questing in the new areas to farm them before you do. Just be prepared to die if your not careful enemies in these zones hit hard. Now on my server the prices have really dropped for these herbs as the frenzy of the new expansion is ending but they can still turn a nice profit. I am currently holding some back waiting for the number of people farming to decrease so that I better control the market. I have a feeling when patch 4.1 goes live prices will spike again and I am looking forward to unloading my herb supply then.

What do you thing? Will Patch 4.1 cause a spike in Auction House prices?

Brimbane Out

The Brimbane Report #8

Good morning and welcome to the Brimbane report. Very little time for WoW this week and it shows. Leveling has slowed to a crawl as I am now sitting at 73 but I have a bright side. While I was working on archaeology I ended up in Gadgetzan and made a quick little discovery. If you check with all the vendors around town you will find several recipes that can turn a quick profit on the Auction House. I have done very well selling the alchemy transmutation recipes and the cooking recipes. Check your server first but on Altar of Storms these items were missing from the AH so I stocked up and started selling. Not huge sales in gold but in the percentage of profit they have been very nice. Most are selling between 60 and 90 gold and only cost silver or a few gold from the vendor. If you remember from my last report I was busted after purchasing some upgrades and with nothing else but buying and selling these recipes I am over 2000 gold again. So if your in Tanaris stop buy and stock up.

Brimbane Out

The Woes of Guild Recruitment

If you are a level one guild trying to recruit more members I feel your pain. With so many other guilds recruiting like crazy its has become very difficult to recruit new talent. I recently set up a new guild, Farmacom, and the act of getting new members has been torture. It seems to me that right now you have two types of people, the ones that are going to the higher level guilds with perks already unlocked so they don't have to wait for the goodies and the ones being used to level the guild. On a personal note I will say that I don't want the first section of members. Joining a guild to just get the perks and never involve yourself in guild activities is just wrong and selfish. Not what a guild should be about. Now the ones that I hope to get are the ones that realize that they will never get a raid spot with their current guild and that when the guild hits the level cap they will get removed from the guild. I suspect as we see guilds hitting the cap a flood of looking for guild request will go out in trade chat and small guilds will pick these up.

Let me know what you think and what ideas you have for smaller guilds to attract members away from the higher level recruiting monsters.

Brimbane Out

The Brimbane Report #7

Brimbane is sitting at 70 and his coffers are nearly empty. That's right I had to spend 4000 gold for Artisan Riding and 1000 gold for a 4th guild bank tab. The thing I am proud of is that I had the gold well in advance of level 70 to pay for the upgrade to my flying. Not true of my first time around. I remember on my first 70 having to save and grind to get the gold, before I learned how to play the Auction House. So what did I do with this new found speed. I went farming. I had two main goals when I started my farm runs. First was to hit areas that allowed me to level Archaeolgy, this required a lot of flight time. Second was to focus on herbs that I needed for my alt's Inscription profession. Both went really well I managed to pick up several stacks of Khadgar's Whisker that I used for Emerald Pigment and Indigo Pigment. I then made my way south and hit Tanaris and completed a common fossil only to find that the next one that popped up was the Fossilized Hatchling. Now you can't imagine my delight to see this little guy. Now all I have to do is collect 85 Fossil shards to complete this rare.  I then flew south again into Uldum and maxed out my herbalism at 450 collecting Cinderbloom. That ended my week and I was pleased, to say the least.

Brimbane Out!

Milestones-Level 68

I wish to say I'm sorry to you my readers and myself for missing a few post for Milestones over the past weeks. But I have a new one for this week and its the great Level 68. Now I know what your asking why 68 and not 70. 68 brings with it one of the best things ever in this stage of wows history. The ability to skip the Burning Crusades areas and get right into Northrend.  At 68 you are able to pick up the ability to fly in Northrend and quest are unlocked for you to complete in the starting areas. If you noticed a grind sitting in after level 62-63 you will now start to level again at a decent pace. I myself enjoy the areas of Northrend more than the Burning Crusades because they feel more relevant and fresh. And maybe just a bit more polished.  As an herbalist this also lets me fly down pick up herbs and fly off again without fighting my way past mobs. And these herbs sell well on the Auction House, so I should see my income start climbing. I hope to see you guys out there as I make my way to 85 reaching your own milestones.

Brimbane Out

The Brimbane Report #6 "Love is Greater Than Gold"

Happy Valentine's Day! This report is going to be a little different because today I want to thank my wife for making everything I do possible. Her love and understanding allow me to spend hours not only playing WoW but writing about it as well. She is also my greatest leveling partner! She takes time out of her own WoW schedule to help me with quest or instances without hesitation. She only has a limited amount of playtime, and for her to drop what she is doing to help me is a true act of love. We have been in and founded guilds together. We have walked the halls of Icecrown Citadel and the depths of the Molten Core. We have climbed Mount Hyjal and dove deep into Vashj'ir. For everything she has done for me in Azeroth and the real world I want to say thank you. I Love You Minnie, (Onehotmomma), with all my heart.

Brimbane Out

P.S.
"Tell someone how you feel today never wait for tomorrow!" -Brimbane

The Brimbane Report #5

Welcome to this weeks update. Brimbane is sitting at level 60 and that means I can now fly. That's right I picked up Flight Form and Flight Master's License making herb gathering and travel so much faster. One thing I have noticed is I am spending more and more time away from any major cities and this has slowed down my gold making ability. To overcome this problem I have set up a banking alt to deal with such issues. This does have some cost associated with it as postage on items does add up over time. As you may know I have also setup a guild know as Farmacom on Altar of Storms. I plan on having my bank alt deposit all of its gold into this guild bank for our members to use for repairs. More updates on Farmacom will appear here as we grow and prosper. I have set aside farming for a bit and have turned my attention to leveling and promoting the guild but this does not mean I have forgotten why I started my Blog. I will soon be back on track with more gold making tips and tricks. Until then I leave you with this tidbit  Dark Iron Residue, that I use to vendor or throw away is now selling for 13 gold and up per 100.

Introducing Farmacom

As darkness settles over Azeroth and its citizens dream of the next days glory, a new guild has been born, Farmacom. So what is Farmacom and why do I care your asking yourself. Guilds come and go and most never become more that just name place holders. With the changes Blizzard has made to guilds and their advancement, I have hopes that Farmacom will not be one of those. But I can not do it alone. I am asking for your help in establishing and thriving this guild that will not be know for the fastest progression or worlds greatest pvpers but for our Wealth and Dignity. We will be the ones who are gold capped but at the same time teaching our fellow adventurers in the ways of the coin. After all, as a gold blogger that is what we strive to do. With every post we hope to inform someone of a new way to do something that will aid in their ability to make gold.

Faracom can be found on my server Altar of Storms. It is open to anyone who wishes to join that knows or wishes to learn how to make gold. It is open to those of us that don't really fit in the raiding or leveling guild molds but would rather spend our time gathering herbs or ore to sell to make tons of gold. It's a place where we can share ideas and strategy to maximize profits. I will also encourage members (If they wish) to write articles for this blog that highlight some of the guilds strategies and adventures.

Now don't think that because we are a guild of farmers we don't raid. We raid with a different mindset is all. As we grow we will be taking down raids looking for those hard to get items that net large amounts of gold or can be disenchanted and sold as materials. We will run instances with our members in mind. Do you need a recipe that only drops in instance X to complete your profession or a special mount or item you have been after? Just let the guild know and we will go after it together as a guild.

I want to thank you for your time and hope if your a member of Altar of Storms looking for your place you will give us a try. If you are just looking for a new home to re roll for a fresh start remember you are welcome. If you are a blogger who wants to join a guild of like minded people than feel free to join in. Just send an in game mail to Brimbane or post a comment here and I will send you and invite.

Brimbane Out

The Brimbane Report #4

Welcome to week number 4 of the Brimbane Report. For those of you following I have yet again squeezed 10 levels into a week. Brimbane hit level 50 late last night with 2 days and 10 hours of playtime. I am sitting with 4,414 gold and a ton of items on the auction house. I have also spent a ton of gold, both in coin and herbs(used versus sold), leveling alchemy. I made the switch from mining to alchemy sooner than I planned but I am glad it is over. I was able to get an Heirloom Cloak to add an additional 5% xp boost that helped offset what I lost due to dropping mining. I will talk more about how and where I leveled during this weeks milestones along with a map of my herbing route for the Western Plaguelands.  I have yet to really start what I call farming and have just grabbed herbs as I go by during questing.  I must say that I enjoyed this weeks quest and if you get a chance, visit the plaguelands and see all the changes Blizzard has done to this once boring zone.

Shop Smart: Auctioneer

This week on Shop Smart we are going to look at a feature of the Auctioneer add-on that can make you some quick gold at lower levels. It’s the vendor search option. If you’re not using Auctioneer I would suggest you download it from Curse.com and run a few scans on the Auction House to get your baseline started.  So after you get it installed you want to look for the search tab at the bottom of the Auction House interface. Under the search tab you want to look for the vendor selection to the left of the screen. Spend some time and look at your option to see if you want to consider bids or buy out and how much you want to make per item.  I look for items with at least a 1 gold or more profit and only look for buy outs, never bids. This does limit me but also limits my risk.  Now your asking me what does this do, well it looks for items listed on the Auction House for less than they vendor for.  I know what you’re saying, “No one does that!” but the truth is they do.  I buy things all the time just to turn around and vendor, mostly white items. Why this works breaks down to one simple word, "TIME". Most people jump on the Auction House and mass post undercutting the competition and not really looking at the posting price. If you get a few people doing this then it doesn’t take long for the price to drop under the vendor amount. You will never get rich doing this or even make enough to buy that epic mount but it can get your cash flow started early on. One word of caution is to never rely on the add-on to do all the work for you, make sure you know your vendor pricing.

"Making gold is not just about selling; it’s also about spending wisely." -Brimbane

Milestones-Level 40

Hit my next milestone at level 40. Now I know what your saying level 40 is pretty dull, no new talent points and not any spells to speak of. This is true, but what you do get that makes level 40 an important milestone is  Journeyman Riding that not only grants you the ability to mount up at 100% ground speed but also comes with an achievement Fast and Furious. Believe me your level 85 friends will love the fact that they don't have to wait on you to catch up near as much.  Plus for me Level 40 marks my halfway point in the journey, yes I know 40 is not half of 85. At 40 the quest and instances just start to feel more epic to me and seem to matter just a bit more. Well that's my thoughts anyhow. See you guys at 50. Brimbane out!

The Brimbane Report #3

This week went a little slow for me on the gold making front. After 1 day and 18 hours I'm sitting at level 40 and 3400 gold. If you take into account the 600 gold I spent for Embersilk Bags I am still on pace at 100 gold per level. The main reason I saw a decrease this week is that I have decided to switch to alchemy at 65 and have been stockpiling herbs, instead of selling them, so that when I make the switch I can power level.  I have noticed on my server that a lot of the mid level herbs and ore are not even listed on the auction house so I can sell them pretty much whenever I like. I suspect to have a surge in income once I sell off any extra herbs I have after leveling alchemy.  I have found a pretty good spot just inside the Western Plaguelands to gather Khadgar's Whisker, Fadeleaf and Kingsblood, that all sell well, while doing quest so no real farming involved, just grab them as you go by. Now that I have hit 40 I am going to start with Ragefire Chasm and see how far I can get soloing in the instance list. I will be posting an average amount of gold you can expect to get when running each instance.  That’s all for this week's report see you soon.

Shop Smart: Return of Investment

In this week's Shop Smart we are going to be looking at your Return of Investment. RoI is something I don’t think many players think about so I wanted to touch on it and hopefully to bring it to the forefront of your mind.  Let me start with something simple that everyone uses and what really got me to thinking about this, Bags. That’s right Bags, we all use them and we often make a tidy sum selling them. But when we are forced to buy them, or make them for ourselves, when do we reach our Return of Investment. 


For example when Brimbane hit level 30 I treated myself by purchasing 2 Embersilk Bags for 300 gold each. I was happy to find them listed so low on the Auction House.  These 22 slotters replaced my 14 slot Journeyman's Backpacks for a net gain of 16 new slots.  If you do the math you will see that it comes to 37.5 gold per bag slot. Easy to make up with extra stacks of wool, herbs, or any other item that sells well, that you'll loot during your runs. If you look at the per slot cost it becomes easy to rationalize that added slots equal more loot and more loot equals more gold. If you follow this line of thinking, as I do then you are mostly correct. On the other hand if I had 20 slot Frostweave Bags and replace with 22 slot bags then I would have been looking at 150 gold per bag slot. The cost here is much harder to justify. But at some point even 4 extra slots will pay for themselves over time. The amount of time it takes is know as your Return of Investment.


This is a simple example of RoI. When you start looking at things like armor or enchants the picture is not so clear.  I am unsure if I could explain it to the degree needed to fully understand outside of an economics class so I will leave it for your own personal study. But by using my example, I hope you will start to think about how much you really spend on those epic purchases. Because, if at the time of replacement, your RoI is not accomplished then it should be counted as lost gold with no way to recover.


"Making gold is not just about selling; it’s also about spending wisely." -Brimbane

Milestones-Level 30

Brimbane the Druid recently hit what I consider a milestone when  he reached level 30. With a flash of lite and several on screen notices, it was quite the fan fair.  How could anyone help but notice when you reach these new levels as you are presented with an onscreen notification of not only your new level but also skills and abilities available from trainers. This was in my opinion one of the smartest things Blizzard has ever done. I for one love milestones, those little things that take the tedious aspect out of leveling.
To present leveling in this way gives you something to look forward to and not just the ding and go approach of the past. Pre-Cataclysm I often would find myself going to a trainer whenever I made it to a town and find that I had several levels of training to do, not anymore. In this new shattered world I look for trainers more frequently so I don't miss out on those new abilities. So I'm off to hit my next milestone at level 40 before the next Brimbane Report.

The Brimbane Report #2

Well week 1 is behind me and I am happy with the results. I have logged just over 23 hours of play and have reach level 28. My bank account is sitting at 2565 gold. Now I have done well on the auction house with ore and herbs but my biggest source of income was the Deviate Hatchling I sold for 1900 gold. Of course after the auction house cut I only pulled in 1800 gold. Now I will admit that I got lucky when I looted that little guy from Wailing Caverns but that is the whole point isn't it, that rare gem you find while running an instance for loot. I will be setting up Wailing Caverns in my farm rotation to see if I can pick up a few more of these. Good luck on your farming and see you next week.

The Brimbane Report #1

Welcome to the Brimbane Report. This is a weekly wrap up of my earnings and status of Brimbane the Druid on Altar of Storms. Since this is the first week lets start with a few things I did to get Brimbane off on the right foot. With Brimbane being an alt of mine the first thing I did was send him BAGS! I cannot stress enough how important bag space is, anything left in the field is money left in the field. Yes those copper add up. Now if this is your first character don't worry Blizzard has a few quest early on that will let you pick up a few bags.  Plus within a few levels and a little work on the auction house you will have the gold needed to buy them. Now that I had storage out of the way I looked at professions. I started off with herbalism and mining for two reasons. Reason number one is because both of these professions for a low lever character earn large amounts of gold. Second is the fact that they both yield experience when farming nodes. This leads to faster leveling that in turn means faster instance farming. Now other professions make money also, for example enchanting or jewel crafting, but they do better at higher levels then the two I have chosen. So now I'm off to earn gold, check back next week for a full report of earnings.