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Skinning/Mining - Money maker, but is this normal?Follow

#1 Jan 24 2005 at 6:50 PM Rating: Good
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I started my Mining profession yesterday (sunday) and I had a skill of 150 in Skinning already.

After having powergrinded copper ore for some time and later on various tin veins near Lakeshire, about 3 hours of work in total, I had 140+ copper and about 80 tin. I smelted it to bars, made as many bronze bars as possible and put it all up for auction.

Everything except 2 x 20 Rough Stone was sold. We're talking 15 auctions or so.

I made 10g from those auctions. And all I did was harvest the ores I passed by and skin the creatures I met on my way through the countryside. Is this normal or was it just a momentary climpse of heaven on a desperate beta server?

If this is normal, imagine the money you could make from 8 hours of powermining/skinning!

Oh boy, oh boy!
#2 Jan 25 2005 at 2:19 AM Rating: Decent

It's normal and it's also why several folks have been screaming it from the rooftops that mining/skinning are hands down the most profitable professions to take up. It's because it's absolutely true.

People suggest production skills but refuse to acknowledge the fact that production skills cost money. A miner/skinner has only a few costs and they're all ONE TIME ONLY (skinning knife, mining pick, raising skill level like from apprentice to journeyman to expert, etc). After that, it's only auction fees. A production skill has to pay for tools (blacksmith's hammer, rods, etc), vendor sold materials (weak flux, thread, dye, etc), RECIPES (both from the trainer and farmed/bought), as well as skill up costs.

Mining and skinning is pure profit from day 2 (day one is when you'll make back the 2s you spent on beginning expenses, plus more). When starting out, nothing beats the skinning/mining combo.
#4 Jan 25 2005 at 3:37 PM Rating: Excellent
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Though choosing two gathering professions can certainly make you money, the auction house isn’t always dependable. I was selling as much as I could with my rogue to make money for my mount using mining and skinning. And while some days every auction would sell, other days I’d have most of them returned. So its not a guaranteed road to riches. Though having said that, I just created a character on a different server to play when my home server is having lag issues and I picked skinning and herbalism so that he’s have money to buy equipment.

Also keep in mind that higher end mining can be very competitive. Nodes can be scarce and highly sought after. And somewhere after tin you no longer gain skill by smelting. So raising your mining skill will require you to spend time hunting for ore instead of doing quests. But some metals, such as truesilver, can make you some fast money if you’re lucky enough to find and mine the nodes. I was selling truesilver for one gold per bar and it almost always sold during the first hour.

Having two gathering skills can be very profitable, but it can also be work.
#5 Jan 27 2005 at 3:15 AM Rating: Decent
Calabar wrote:
Having two gathering skills can be very profitable, but it can also be work.


But can't the same be said for pretty much EVERY aspect of every MMO to date? I haven't encountered a single MMO that didn't feel like 'work' at some point. Maybe that's why folks refer to things like 'XP grinding' (why not XP skating or XP sliding or XP burning?), 'farming' (i.e. killing easy stuff to make money that killing challenging stuff didn't make or didn't make enough of) and the like. But, I'd go so far as to say that having 2 gathering skills (specifically mining and skinning, since herbs don't sell for crap on Elune) is LESS work (even at mithril+ levels) since it's largely effortless. As you rise in skill, you begin to learn where ore nodes are more likely to spawn. While the competition is a lot more fierce, people (in general) are sheep and won't go off the beaten path at all. A guildmate of mine can ALWAYS come up with a full stack of Truesilver and/or Mithril bars within 90 mins of logging in because he knows of several places where people don't go but which hold these ore nodes.

And as far as making your own upgrades goes, I used to have that perspective. But then I saw that the armor made by smiths is almost designed to be inferior to drops. So much so that a required level 15 dropped BP (Raider's Chestpiece of * ) beats the living crap out of a required level 18 smithed BP (Rough Copper Vest). And it only gets worse. Weapon wise, it's a little better though drops (GREENS, not blues or purples) still beat smithed weapons 9 times out of 10. It's the same way with leatherworking and tailoring (though there are a few exceptions).
#6 Jan 27 2005 at 8:55 AM Rating: Excellent
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Quote:
But can't the same be said for pretty much EVERY aspect of every MMO to date? I haven't encountered a single MMO that didn't feel like 'work' at some point.


True enough. But the reason I pointed out that taking two gathering skills can be work is because in many threads I’ve read there seems to be the perception that taking gathering skills means both fast and easy money. And though I agree that it’s easier than leveling up a production skill, there is often still some work involved.

Quote:
And as far as making your own upgrades goes, I used to have that perspective. But then I saw that the armor made by smiths is almost designed to be inferior to drops.


I agree with this as well. And Blizzard has even admitted as much on more than one occasion. As they put it, crafted equipment is meant to fill in some of the gaps between dropped items. I feel the true usefulness of player crafted equipment depends on your play style. If you group a lot and spend a lot of time in instances where you have access to bind on pickup items, player crafted items will be greatly inferior. For myself, I think I’ve been in a total of three instances and I stared playing WoW the day it was released. Most of the gear my level 40 rogue is wearing is player made. So again, it depends on your play style.

And to be honest, in every MMORPG I’ve played over the last six years, mob dropped items have almost always been better than player made items. On top of that, in most of those games choosing to pursue a craft usually meant pouring large amounts of money into it. EverQuest was especially bad about that. About the only real reason to become a crafter in EQ was because you enjoyed making things. I’ve noticed that Blizzard chose to be much kinder to crafters in WoW. If you gather your own supplies, which is extremely easy compared to EQ, especially during the first 200 or so skill points, you will actually make a bit more money selling to NPCs than you spend on supplies like silk thread or hot spices.

All that having been said, I feel professions in WoW are more or less the same as every other MMORPG. If you enjoy crafting then go for it. If you don’t enjoy crafting then take up gathering professions for some extra cash and be done with it.
#7 Jan 27 2005 at 4:55 PM Rating: Decent
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51 posts
I'm going to be starting to play wow soon, and I was wondering how skinning/enchanting would fair. Skinning would be the money-maker the quick money maker, while enchanting would be the slower money maker. I don't mind having to disenchant items, and having to put in a lot of effort to be a good enchanter, I was just wondering if someone could give me some feedback as to what they would think of this combo. Thanks in advance
~Somma
#8 Jan 27 2005 at 5:58 PM Rating: Default
I know how much everyone hates to see things nerfed, but the value of the collected resources (ore, leather, etc) needs to be seriously reduced. The economic model they use that makes unprepared resources worth more than the final products is absurd and it leads to exactly the problem this thread is showing.

Uncooked dough should not be worth more than finely baked bread. A uncut diamond should not be worth more than a finely cut one. The brainless grunt should not be paid more than the skilled artisan.

The current value model (vendor prices) is completely nonsensical. If Blizz drops the selling values of resources the AH will reflect it since most players base prices off the starting AH value.

Anyone think down this line?
#9 Jan 28 2005 at 3:58 PM Rating: Excellent
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4,574 posts
Quote:
I'm going to be starting to play wow soon, and I was wondering how skinning/enchanting would fair. Skinning would be the money-maker the quick money maker, while enchanting would be the slower money maker. I don't mind having to disenchant items, and having to put in a lot of effort to be a good enchanter, I was just wondering if someone could give me some feedback as to what they would think of this combo.


That combination can work. I’ve even read a post from someone who chose those professions and he said they worked very well for him. You could exchange skinning or mining or herbalism as well, though skinning is the easiest of the gathering professions.

The only problem you’d have is that you wouldn’t be able to make your own green/blue items to disenchant. I took enchanting from 1 to 135 almost entirely from using linen to make brown robes via tailoring and disenchanting them. But you could do the same with dropped items. It would just be slower and arguably more expensive. Still, if you would enjoy skinning more than tailoring they go for it. If you should find that it doesn’t work like you thought it would you can drop skinning and take up a different profession.

Quote:
I know how much everyone hates to see things nerfed, but the value of the collected resources (ore, leather, etc) needs to be seriously reduced. The economic model they use that makes unprepared resources worth more than the final products is absurd and it leads to exactly the problem this thread is showing.


I don’t mean to belittle what you’re saying, as I happen to agree with it in general. However, selling resources has been more profitable than selling processed trade items, with a few top end exceptions, in every MMORPG I’ve ever played. The problem isn’t how much the NPCs will pay players for items. If you want proof, take a look at EQ. The problem is that people, in general, are very lazy creatures. When players with money want to advance their production skills many of them are more than willing to pay someone else to spend hours gathering the needed materials. Thus gathering professions would still be the most profitable professions even if the NPCs refused to buy them from you.
#10 Jan 29 2005 at 11:30 AM Rating: Decent
DO thick hides or heavy hides sell well at all in the AH? I never see them there, and dont know too many recipies that require these ingredents.

Where is that price check web site?
#11 Jan 29 2005 at 1:18 PM Rating: Good
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12,049 posts
This seems like it might be normal. I don't know too much about the game, as I don't have it yet, either. However, a real life friend of mine has had it for... oh, maybe a month? He plays as a Druid, and is up to level 25 or so, and has herbalism/mining. He says, that just by using mining alone, he can easily make 5g a day. Interestingly, he doesn't use online guides or forums at all, and has no knowledge of "good" mining areas. But he still makes a ton.

I want to go herbalism/alchemy, but I almost feel like skinning/mining would be the best way to go >_<. Ah, indecision! I think I'll just make some alts to do those, though :-D. So, making a lot off of these skills seems normal.
#12 Jan 30 2005 at 5:15 AM Rating: Decent
TheBlindBat wrote:
I know how much everyone hates to see things nerfed, but the value of the collected resources (ore, leather, etc) needs to be seriously reduced. The economic model they use that makes unprepared resources worth more than the final products is absurd and it leads to exactly the problem this thread is showing.

Uncooked dough should not be worth more than finely baked bread. A uncut diamond should not be worth more than a finely cut one. The brainless grunt should not be paid more than the skilled artisan.

The current value model (vendor prices) is completely nonsensical. If Blizz drops the selling values of resources the AH will reflect it since most players base prices off the starting AH value.

Anyone think down this line?


Well first off, you're basing your outrage on vendor prices. Who the heck sells raw materials to vendors?!? That's like trading your iPod for a crack rock. As Calabar said, raw materials sell well TO PLAYERS. That's where the profit lies. Selling it to vendors would basically annihilate any margin you hope for.

And your comparisons are flawed as well since, uncut diamonds ARE worth more than "finely cut" ones, more often than not (assuming the clarity, carat, and color is the same). Pamela Anderson makes far more than a schoolteacher (brainless grunt vs skilled artisan?). Real world comparisons usually don't match up very well when talking about relative values in MMOs. After all, in many places, a woman can make more money on her back with her legs in the air a few times per month (**** actress/"exotic dancer") than she can doing most other "mainstream" occupations and have more personal freedom to boot.

The value of raw materials in WoW is set by the market (as it should be, like most things in RL are). If people would only pay 20c for a stack of heavy leather, then that's what heavy leather would go for. But, the moment someone pays 1s for a stack of heavy leather, all bets are off. The same goes for produced goods with one exception. In WoW, anyone can do any tradeskill to any level they so choose and the materials are by no means rare (until the very highest levels...and even then). So you have far more supply than demand. So, this makes produced items a "buyer's market" and with producers always needing more materials, those materials become more of a "seller's market". There is little than Blizzard can do to stop this without totally revamping the tradeskill system (again) and/or making materials so common, it drives the value of them down due to oversupply.
#13 Jan 31 2005 at 5:29 AM Rating: Decent
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483 posts
I see some small connection between leather and strippers, but wow that was a fast transition between them!

Still even in FFXI, where skilling up certain trades was excruciating, you'd take a very long time until you got to a profitable level. Now obviously in WoW there is more demand for finished items as everything soulbinds, and eventually finds its way to the vendor, but still if its relatively easy to get a trade to a high level, I fail to see how anyone can make excessive profit unless it takes them a great deal of effort (perhaps enchanting).

Of course, this means that trades will become utilities instead of true jobs. A mage brewing some potions, a rogue skinning and making some fresh armor, and so on. Until this becomes painfully apparent, raw materials will continue to sell very well, people will craft at a loss, and the profit margins (and with them, raw material prices) should eventually come down (relative to the value of other items, inflation might be a larger issue later).
#14 Jan 31 2005 at 8:21 AM Rating: Default
I look back to EQ 10p each spiderling silk still sells at that price after 5 years will always sell at that price, why? cause som many tradeskills require this very easy to get common item they drop off a mob that you start killing at LEVL 3 relative value is .001p real value sold to another player is 10p

to those that arent familiar with EQ 1p = 10s in wow (based on the time and mob level /player level to get that amount ) i literally funded all my chars in eq off my alt who's soul responsibility was to either kill spiderling for their silk or make silk into leather padding (too hard to explain in this post and not relevant)
when i left i gave away 100k (about 10kgold in wow economics) because i couldnt see that much money goto waste when i canceled my account
#16 Feb 01 2005 at 1:50 PM Rating: Decent
It definitely kind of bothers me that you can make better money off of chosing two gathering pros than by selling finished products. After all, as another poster pointed out, in the real world we tend to pay more (and usually a considerable amount more) for finished products than raw materials. The added value comes from the labor and expertise it took to convert raw to finished.

In WoW (as in every other MMOG) the problem is that raw materials actually have an extra resource, namely XP. That is to say, since you acquire skill points for converting raw materials into finished products, it is worth it to pay extra for the raws. So people who have the dough and are looking to skill up their productions fast are willing to pay more cash for raws, but are decidedly discouraged from paying any cash for finisheds, since their goal is to skill up.

Of course this should balance with the added utility of the finished product. You can't wear Cured Light Hide, nor can you attack with Iron Ore. But since it seems you can almost always find equal or better gear through drops, and since the number of people practicing the same pro as you is so high, you face pretty stiff competition for selling finished products.

My current endeavor is to bypass the AH altogether. I stock up a small pile of finisheds, go to a zone where the majority of players are just hitting the lvl req for the gear, stand next to the AI vendors, and hawk my wares. So far I've had mixed results. One problem is that most people who would be buying my wares (leather) are usually skilling the same path so they figure they're going to make what I'm selling eventually anyways. Another problem is that people don't enjoy/understand haggling, and seem to find it intimidating and annoying if someone approaches them to sell them stuff. So far, I would have to say, my experiments in "direct marketing" have had mixed results.

So it is indeed hard, in my opinion, to make a lot of money following the traditional route of gathering resources, converting them into products, and selling them at the AH. (Though I confess I haven't gotten to the uber levels of my pros, where perhaps you can make a lot selling certain items.)

I don't know if this is something that needs to be "fixed" or if it is just design. After all, one of the main reasons I practice pros is just for the fun of it. But it does seem somewhat illogical sometimes to be actually losing money by practicing my craft.

#17 Feb 02 2005 at 3:02 PM Rating: Decent
Didn't read all this thread, people type too damn much.

I am a lvl 60 rog, I do mining/skinning. I have epic mount and about 1700g built up (I do not bot). I have gotten lucky on many purple/blue drops, and grind $ very fast, but I also make a killing on gathering.

I sell a stack of thorium for 6g
10 rugged leather for 2.5g
20 truesilver for 15g approx.(varies, sometimes its higher/lower)
all this is at high abundance for me.

I could list more, but you get the point.....everyone I know who has a trade profession is broke. There is only room for so many of us tho, or we would have nobody to sell to. If you want cash to buy whatever you want, then go this route, if you like making items, then go whatever way is fun for you.

Nothing much for me to buy at my lvl, so my cash just keeps building. I might drop skinning and pick up engineering just because I need something to blow my $ on.
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