Rituals of the New Moon

Rituals of the New Moon is a scribe-made item which is learned from a scribe-only drop in Grizzly Hills. Unlike other professions such as Enchanting, Leatherworking, and Jewelcrafting, this is the ONLY dropped technique for Inscription. Because of this, only a very small percentage of scribes know about it or have the technique. Of course, this is an opportunity ripe for the picking...

This awesome thread in the JMTC forums turned me on to marketing these. Rituals is unusual because it is a vanity item that is extraordinarily easy to make - for me, crafting one Rituals costs about 35 gold to make. However since the number of people who know it is low, it is still very profitable to make. Some people can sell them for up to 500g! Unfortunately on my server that number is much lower, but still great profit (150-200g).

It is generally agreed that Rituals don't sell well unless you advertise them, because a lot of people don't even know they exist! It goes to follow then that you should have a /2 macro to advertise these whenever you're in town and idle. But how do you link an item in a macro?

This can be a bit tricky. Remember, this first part is done in CHAT, NOT the macro editor. Open your chat cursor and paste in:

/script CreateMacro("Macro Name", 1, "item link", nil, 1)

Where it says "Macro Name" type in the name you desire. This is the name that shows in your macro pane and on the button.

/script CreateMacro("Macro Name", 1, "item link", nil, 1)

Now, delete 'item link' and between the quotation marks shift+click on an item to link it in the chat pane. It should look like this:

Now hit Enter. You should have a new macro in your Macro pane that looks like this:



Congratulations! Your macro is now ready. You can change the macro's icon and add text around the item link as shown in the first picture. YAY!

Using these types of macros I can advertise direct sales or that my Rituals are up on the AH. Sales vary from day to day, but Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Sundays are the best days, in my experience. Tonight I made over 1500g in 40 minutes just advertising to the pre-raid crowd. Of course, this is an excellent way to sell any item you need to advertise (Mechano-hogs, for example). Good luck and happy scribbling!

Northrend's sunken ships

I just found this amazing post - a gnome swam all around Northrend, charting every sunken ship he could find in the ocean and marking it on a map.

glyph wall gone

After 5 days, the glyph wall has crumbled. Profits have risen to what they used to be, and all is well.

server prejudices

I often see posts on the WoW forums about "bad" servers - servers which are apparently full to bursting with arrogant, immature, trolling, griefing and thieving players. I don't put much stock in such threads, because the crushing majority of my dungeon groups are pleasant and smooth no matter where the members are from. As an exercise, however, I went through my ignore list and marked down how many people I had ignored from which realm.

Alexstrsza - 1
Blackhand - 5
Cho'gall - 11
Destromath - 6
Dethecus - 7
Garona - 1
Gorgonnash - 1
Hellscream - 1
Illidan - 17
Kael'thas - 5
Stormreaver - 1
Spinebreaker - 1


Interesting...

trade comedy

[2. Trade] [my scribe]: Tear up some puny vampires as a wicked wolf! [Rituals of the New Moon] available now in grey, black and white! RAWR!
[2. Trade] [warrior fellow]: Do not be a pedo like jacob! sparkle like edward with [Jewelcrafting]!


I laughed out loud.

GDKP post template

Thanks to Markco's amazing Blog Carnival I've had a lot of visitors today. (Hai 2 u!) I'm still reading through all the amazing articles and am busy with other stuff, but I figured I'd throw on a "gimme" post as a sort of addendum to my featured article.

This is the template I use to post GDKP signups on my realm forum. Dates are examples and of course are changed from week to week.

TITLE:
[H] ICC25 GDKP on 8/7 and 8/8


BODY:
Please be 15 minutes early and be ready to chain pull.

ICC25 on Saturday @ 2 PM server time.
ICC25 on Sunday @2 PM server time.


I've been running GDKPs since 2009. An excellent explanation about what GDKP is and how it is run and secured can be found here:
http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t77416-gdkp_run_discussion_spread_your_server/

I ask for a 300g reservation for a spot. This money goes into the split for that day. You have 24 hours previous to the run to cancel your reserve and get it back. If you don't show up, sorry, but that money is still going into the split. I don't keep it, it's not a scam, it is so people who REALLY want to come will do so. Reserves get priority spots over folks who only sign up.

Saturday's run is for the slightly less-geared. We don't get as much down but people are still buying stuff so there's a decent split. Depending on the group we may get all the wing bosses san Sindra, or we might just do the basic fights. It varies.

Sunday's run is for experienced and geared players who are interested in gearing offspecs or picking up rare pieces, and are capable of doing several hard modes. IF YOU DO NOT PERFORM TO BASIC HM STANDARD you will be KICKED. If you stand in goo/fire, perform 7000 dps (with the buff, no less), or are generally a tard I will happily replace you. So come with flasks and be ready to kill things (or heal things).

Splits are anywhere from 3000-7000 gold usually. Trinkets often go for over 20k. Only Primordial Saronites are reserved; all other items, including BoE items, are bid upon.


Since this has been an issue, I want it to be very clear that when joining my group you play by my rules. These rules are posted in chat in the beginning of the run so that if necessary a Game Master can review them. These rules cover how loot is distributed, what I expect in terms of play quality, and how you should behave. It is YOUR FAULT if you do not read or remember the rules.

This layout presents the most essential information at the top (date and time) and expands into further relevant information in the following paragraphs. After all, the rules are meaningless if you're not even there on time. :P

The link to EJ is important since it shows that this is a widespread phenomenon that is fair and supported by the pro's. EJ is very positive "advertisement" because players trust them.

Again, always be up-front about your rules, standards, reserves, etc. There are definitely scams out there that call themselves GDKPs which serve only to take money for one person. People are nervous handing over big sums of cash, and rightly so. Do your best to assure people of your trustworthiness. In my case, I'm active on my server's forums and have the advantage of being a veteran GDKP raid leader. People know my name and trust me not to cheat them. It's very important to start building this base of trust if you plan on leading these raids well into the future.

the news

Sorry I haven't really updated. I'm in the midst of a few long-term deals and am feeling out how they will go at the moment, and am hesitant to post confidently about them.

My competitor's glyph wall is slightly crumbling. I'm seeing a few glyphs creep back to my threshold. Ironically my profits have remained the same! I still have a huge store of glyphs, inks and herbs and am buying more herbs on the cheap. The volume isn't as large as when I had my personal botter, but I have such a large stock that buying more is largely out of habit. :P

Unfortunately, GDKP today was a disaster. I am fairly soft-spoken and had about 3 loud people in Vent today, leaving me unable to be heard on our Sindragosa attempts. >_< It REALLY pissed me off. And then later on plague wing a verbal fight broke out between a friend of mine and a regular member. I was tired and sick of essentially babysitting so I simply called it. *sigh* Sometimes there's just bad mojo, y'know? I'm going to be enforcing my rules more strictly from now on, because people need to realize I'm here to raid, not babysit their troublemaking asses...