When I posted on Friday I foresaw myself as a new William Bell, striding forth into the alternate reality to make my fortune.
And then, following a response to a comment from Bell *ooooh freaky!!!*, it appears that a couple of idiots decided to dribble on their keyboards, the unfortunate result being ridiculous comments added to the post
I've left them there because they arent offensive but I am going to explain why they are wrong. I feel I may need to get my sock puppets out, because I fear this is the only way they will understand the maths involve.
Are we sitting comfortably? Well then we will begin...
Once upon a time in a land far far away, a lady hunter named Puraa was bored. She'd spent the previously day shooting bad people, but today she didn't have any bad people around to shoot, so she decided to needed to find something else to do.
By her side was her faithful wolf. He had been helping Puraa hurt the bad people the day before as well, but now he sat by her side and scratched.
Puraa decided that she should try and do some work. Unfortunately shooting bad people can be quite expensive, and Puraa always likes to have shiny clothes to wear doesnt she?
Now something you might not know about Puraa is that she is a scribe. That means she likes to write things down on pieces of parchment. Sometimes people like to buy the things she writes down. Unfortunately Puraa doesnt have anything to write with, she doesnt have any ink. Isnt that sad?
But fear not! Puraa has some money and went off to the nice man at the Auction House and bought 10 stacks of whiptail for 800g. Hooray!
Puraa sat quietly and turned the 10 stacks of herbs into ink. When she had finished she had 60 blackfallow inks and 10 inferno inks. Puraa was not surprised as this is what she got every time she milled 10 stacks of ink. Isnt Puraa clever?
Now Puraa knew that people liked inferno ink. So she went back and say the nice man in the Auction House who helped her sell each inferno ink for 80g each! Wow! Thats 800g for just selling the inferno inks. Hooray!
Puraa sat down and looked at her blackfallow inks. She quickly checked her purse. She had spent 800g on herbs and sold 10 inferno inks for 800g. That means that she still had 60 blackfallow inks and it hadnt cost her a single copper! Isnt that wonderful?
Now Puraa had to decide what to do with her FREE BLACKFALLOW INK but thats a story for another day isnt it children? But rest assured Puraa lived happily ever after whilst the stupid people were poor.
11 comments:
Now Alto saw Puraa go through the whole process. Alto thought a bit, and struts over to Puraa and says "Puraa, those inks are free, you bought the herbs from me, can I have them?"
Puraa tells Alto "No way! I worked for them, no, you can't have them!"
Distressed, Alto asks Puraa "I understand you don't want to give them to me because although they are free to you, they still have value, right?"
I think what the other folks are posting about is that everyone sees different value in their "free procs".
I am in that boat. In the same sentence I may say they are "free", but they are mine, and I have a value for them. If I sell them in the AH for 14g, my "free" just turned into my value. I feel unless I get 14g out of them, I am at a loss. I think this mentality is what helped me get gold capped in this game. Set a value for your "freebies/procs", and anything less than their highest worth I see as a loss.
So I would love to be able to be included in the back forth, I have to agree with all sides, as they make sense in their own way.
Alto’s Goldish Advice- The Worst WoW Blog Ever!
Puraa glares at Alto.
The point is that I can make a glyph with little cost to myself other than the time it takes to mill the ink and write the glyph.
Therefore what I sell the glyph for is profit - and this is why Moonvengence can sell all glyphs for under 10g and still make money.
To clarify with simple numbers - If we milled 800g worth of herbs and only made 200g from selling Infernos then each each Blackfallow would have cost us 10g each. Therefore the glyph has a production cost of 30g. Selling the glyph for less than 30g would mean that over time your 800g start up fund would dwindle away until you had nothing.
Production cost always had to be part of the consideration of your sell price - glyphs have a 'free' production cost and therefore can be sold for 5g for a profit.
I understand your point of view alto - but the value of 14g you mention is your profit - the ink still cost you nothing bar some time to make. 10 stacks of herbs just took me 5 mins to make, most of that afw.
And as for procs - irrelevant. You work everything out on worse case scenario - the RNG is a bitch and can bite you if you fly too close to the sun.
1) It did cost Puraa "copper" to get the "free" inks. Specifically, 800g. If she did not have the 800g to invest in this venture, she would have got nothing.
2) If Puraa can sell the Inferno Inks for 80g apiece and she can turn 10 Blackfallow Inks into 1 Inferno Ink, then the Blackfallow is worth 480g. Puraa turned 800g into 1280g (800g + 480g).
Perhaps you are using different definitions of the word "free" here. I would never use the word free to describe what in actuality is "profit" because it can quickly lead to irrational behavior. For example, Puraa could use those 60 Blackfallow Ink to, say, make 30 Dust of Disappearance. Did she lose any money there? "Of course not... the ink was free! You can never lose money getting money out of free things!" Or perhaps she made some glyphs for her alts, not caring about what else she could have done with that ink specifically because it was "free" in her mind.
What Puraa did was receive a return on her investment, e.g. profit, that she can now reinvest into Inscription to hopefully make an even higher profit margin off of Glyphs (vs just turning the 60 Ink into 6 Infernos and selling those).
The only time I would ever use "free" with anything is if, say, a friend quit WoW and mailed me a bunch of enchanting mats.
Everything else is investments and returns.
You bet brother!
I do work things out on a worse case scenario, because then no matter what your type, the cup is half full. The RNG is a killa, there is no doubt there. I have been bitten many times, and I am sure it will continue to happen!
Production cost always had to be part of the consideration of your sell price - glyphs have a 'free' production cost and therefore can be sold for 5g for a profit.
Sure, 5g per glyph could be considered "profit," insofar as you have already made back your initial 800g investment.
However, it would be monstrously dumb to make 5g glyphs when you could turn the 60 inks into 6 Inferno inks, which you already established would go for 80g easily.
20 glyphs * 5g = 100g
6 Inferos * 80g = 480g.
Not only would you be making 380g more, it would be infinitely easier than actual glyph-making, which at a minimum requires you to pick and choose which ones to craft versus just hitting up a vendor for 10 seconds.
At a certain point, the "free" thinking becomes absurd. Did you know Blackfallow Ink can be vendored for 5 silver? Would you consider the 3g you got from vendoring 60 Blackfallow Inks to be profit? Technically, it is! However, spending 800g to make 803g is not a particularly effective use of anyone's time - you are liable to make more than 3g killing 5 random Cataclysm mobs in a fraction of the time. Inferno Inks vs 5g glyphs is the same sort of deal.
What Puraa does with her blackfallow is irrelevant - the point is what ever she does is profit. Of course I would maximise profit and sell as infernos, especially with Moon having locked down the glyph market as he has.
But (and once again I will say it because some of you obviously arent getting it) the 60 blackfallow cost Puraa nothing bar time to create. She sits with her wolf with 60 blackfallow inks in her lap. Five minutes previously she didnt have any inks and 800g. Now she has 60 inks and 800g.
Perhaps we could have told a different story.
Puraa was bored etc etc.
She sat around for five minutes. There was a puff of smoke and suddenly 60 blackfallow inks appeared in her lap. This happened because the happy fairies loved Puraa because she wasnt dumb.
Puraa was happy. She has 60 blackfallow inks and they cost her nothing bar hanging around for 5 minutes.
Now Mud comes along and sees all the glyphs for sale at very cheap prices (cheap compared to recent times)and outfits all his toons with all available glyphs. Nice works guys :P. Never have to buy another glyph again. Now can we get a Tailor into this, some cheap cloth for my Priest would be good.
Or Puraa could just turn her Blackfallow Inks into Mysterious Fortune Cards or Fortune Cookies, which inveterate gamblers might buy for 15-20g apiece. Or she might even turn them into those things and use them herself and get lucky. Whatever Puraa does, though, she hasn't lost any gold; and if she decides to sell them, then she's a business woman making a profit. Otherwise, she's a gambler supporting a habit, but at least she's not losing anything.
This explains it;
http://www.justmytwocopper.org/2011/02/king-aurther-and-opportunity-cost.html
Perhaps its just the language used. breevok, deep undercutting based on the idea that mats are free is silly. The mats from your inks are further profit and how you choose to reinvest that profit shows what kind of goblin you are. By deep undercutting you are losing out on potential profit. Hence its a loss on potential. As the others have said. Yes you have a profit, but in a competition you would fail, because the goblin who understands opportunity cost WILL always have more profit than you.
"Now Puraa had to decide what to do with her FREE BLACKFALLOW INK but thats a story for another day isnt it children? But rest assured Puraa lived happily ever after whilst the stupid people were poor."
Huh?
The post was not only condescending, but here it gets donwright insulting.
I was nowhere near the posts you mention, but responding in the way you did speaks volumes.
If you care for the unbiased portion of your readers I'd think on it. Not that you should, it's your blog after all.
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