The benefits of farming

So, it's been tough lately to get some quality mining time in so I can get accurate numbers for my mining experiment. Between leveling my hunter alt (the most fun I've ever had leveling a character), raiding and helping the guild with brewfest stuff, I haven't had an uninterrupted hour of farming time. A side note, I was part of the first successful AUO 10 man Onyxia raid on Saturday and it felt gooood. We got her on the 7th attempt. She truely is a loot pinata, dropping about 5 or 6 items (I can't remember exactly) which is awesome for a 10 man raid. I won the spellpower sword because I was the only one that could use it. I love winning loot by default! I don't need no stinking /roll.

On to the heart of the subject here. Mining does have it's benefits. I was doing a few laps around Icecrown and decided to head into Sholozar Basin. I had hit 3 titanium nodes in less than 10 minutes and was feeling lucky. I normally head into the Basin and turn left, flying clockwise mining as I go. I decided this time to turn right and go counter clockwise. Good thing I did. As I land to mine a saronite node, I notice the star on my mini map marking one of the spawn points of Loque'nahak, the spirit beast. My wife's hunter has all 3 spirit beasts, so I normally don't pay much attention to these spots any more, but this time I decided to take a look behind me after I mined the ore. Sure enough Loque was there! I quickly did a /gchat shout out for all hunters interested to head to my location asap. Darallun (of afkautoshot) quickly replied and hauled ass out to Sholozar. Luckily, no one else showed up and he had an easy time taming the beast. So now, Darallun has his second spirit beast! It was like the stars had all aligned that night. Darallun usually raids as Survival, but I think he needs to start going Beast Master and bringing out his new kitteh.

So, as we can see, sometimes farming has benefits that transcend the accumulation of gold.

Gone farming

It's been a sad few weeks for me. The wild price variations on crafted ammo has all but wrecked my income generation for a while now and sales of everything else I do have also been sporadic at best, so I'm going to run a short experiment over the next week or two. I'm going to start farming again. I'll be fishing and mining in 1 hour increments to see how much I can gather and convert into gold.

Farming is an important activity because in order to fund just about any tradeskill that you want to use for profit, you need a bankroll to buy materials. Yes, it is true, you need to have money to make money. Well, I'd like to amend that old cliche. You need to have money in order for your money to make money for you.

This experiment was really spurred on by a guildmate who is just about broke (in game). He has all these fancy professions on his two level 80's, but no cash to buy materials. So, I want to try to put a number on how much time it should take someone with a few basic gathering professions to get enough capital to start a crafting business.

Let the experiment begin!

More on inscription

I had a lot of comments on my last post regarding Inscription, so I figured I'd follow up with a new post instead of posting a reply that would get lost or not seen.

For the power leveling question, I'd say it's up to you if you want to wait and do it all at once. I know it's how power leveling professions has been done for years, but it does miss the point of my last article.

The main point of my article was that Inscription is a great profession to level while you level your character because it is useful. If you wanted Engineering as a profession, I'd say wait until you hit level 70 at the very least and power level like crazy. It would give you more time to bargain hunt on the auction house for materials as a side benefit. Engineering has very little benefit to a leveling character, so why bother taking time away from questing?

Inscription is a great profession and it was designed well. The money making part of it is great, but if I wanted to play a game to just make money, I'd be a day trader in real life and not waste my time on making fake money in a game. I play games to have fun and Inscription helps in that regard a lot. I use it while I'm leveling. It helps enhance my character's performance, if you know what I mean ;)

So, in my opinion, if you have a low level alt and want to take up Inscription, start to level it now. I think you'll really enjoy it.

If you did chose to power level Inscription, I'd say just buy the herbs from the auction house, unless they are grossly overpriced or in short supply. You can also buy Ink of the Sea (if it's cheaper than the herbs) and trade it to Jessica Sellers for the inks you need for leveling. For advice on what addons to use, I'd say check out the Greedy Goblin's articles on inscription or Just My Two Copper's forums.