Spring cleaning

It's May. Late Spring. In the UK the lambs will frolicking, the gardens slowly moving into their prime. Of course I live in the Southern Hemisphere and its raining and cold and we are bedding in for winter. But however long I've lived here, a part of me always considers this time of year as Spring...
With Spring comes the tradition to sort out things, tidy up and get rid of clutter - the spring clean. And although its blowing a gale outside, with the rain pelting down, I started on my own WoW spring clean last night.

The issue is I have eight alliance toons. Four reside with More Than Raids - whilst four are members of their own guilds. In total I have 23 guild bank tabs - of which one is on permanent loan to a friend. Of the remaining 22 tab approximately 20 are either full or mostly full.

One toon carries 6 tabs of inks. Another has 5 tabs of herbs. One has 6 tabs of pre cata mats and the last have four tabs of cata mats and other bits and bobs such as the patterns that no longer exist since cata etc. But I do want to get another toon into MTRs shortly, which means downsizing my storage requirements, which means its time for a clear out.

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When it comes to my bank tabs - things are very organised. Take herbs as an example - I have seven stacks of every herbs in the game. Why seven? Because thats how many stacks make up a column in a guild bank.

Now whoever designed the guild bank tab is a sick person, who, in my humble opinion, designed the dimensions of the guild bank to screw with the minds of those who need order in the world. The dimensions of 14x7 has always been problematic - seven is a prime number and fourteen is two times the same prime number.

OK that probably made zero sense. For me, I like order. I like full stacks, full columns, full rows.

I have seven stacks of each herb because it makes sense to full up a full column. If I chose 6 stacks each column the last stack of each column would be empty. The only thing that could go in there would be a single stack of something else. Of course I could fill the bottom slot of a number of columns but then they would form a row rather than a column, and it just wouldnt sit right. Consider it a mild form of OCD, but its bugs me immensely when its not correct.

Still confused? Yes so am I... diagram time.

Currently I keep 7 stacks and a full bank tab looks like this:

This is good!









Now if I had decided to only keep 6 stacks of each item a tab would look like this:

Bad! Bad!! Bad!!!









Not only would there not be visual cleanliness but also there would be two slots empty. What do you do with those?

Likewise if you store things vertically you are limited to two stacks...

Yummy ordered goodness!









But increase to three?

Does not compute!









The same happens for four, five or any other number...bar seven which we already covered.

Therefore to calm my anal retentiveness (thanks Immy! :P) I am find myself limited to storing items in with two stacks or seven stacks. I can do 14s and singles as well but who keeps just a single stack of something?!?

Of course there are tabs of very small number of item types....here my retentiveness kicks in less...so I can have a tab of two kind of inks.... but one starts from the left hand column and the other start from the right hand column. I struggle if I have to mix types on a single column and regularly move inks from one tab to another to avoid this.

Now I am sure this sounds like madness - but as another example comes from real life  - the Rubik's Cube. I cannot sit comfortably in any environment where there is an unfinished Rubik's Cube. It drives me insane to try and do so.The moment I see one I have to complete it and sit it back in place satisfied that there is order in some small aspect of the universe. People have noticed this though and will pop into my office and mess up the cube sat on my desk just to screw with me - but thats humanity for you!

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But I digress... I was talking about cleaning up. As I said I have a lot of stuff. I horde and I admit it. I have stacks of most things in the game (ores, metals, herb, enchanting mats etc). I was asked why - and being honest with myself I came up with the most feeble of responses. Basically I said 'just in case I need them' - which is rather sad when you think about it.

 Mind you - it isnt about the money its about the supply. If I need two essence of air I want two essence of air - I dont want to wait for someone to post two essence of air on the AH. I don't want to have to go to Silithus to farm it - I want two essence of air goddammit!

So have have tabs of mats that I never use just on the off chance that I will. However this isnt the major issue with storage. Most of these old mats are just being kept in double stacks...so arent taking up (too) much space.

But there are some things I do have slightly more of... 14 stacks of WotLK enchanting mats. 14 stacks of frozen orbs. 21 stacks of eternal life/fire/shadow/earth/air/water. I honestly dont need 21 stacks of - I know it... but prices continue to climb ever upwards (as predicted!) and hasnt reached the peek. Therefore selling now will not bring in as much as it would in a month or 3 months!

And therein lies the issue. I sit on massive stockpiles of stock where I know prices are rising.

As an example I will look at a engineering recipe 'Schematic: Deepdive Helmet'

This item was purchased for a few silver in Azshara from a gnomish couple, right up to the point when the shattering happened. According to Wowhead:

This item is no longer available within the game.

Guess Wowhead hasnt look in my guildbank where I have 50 of these sat then. I sell around one a month for anywhere between 500 to 1500g. In a year they will be worth 3k. And I point blank refuse to have a fire sale on these - I might as well give gold away!

Alas the same is true for the other two recipes you could buy but no longer can. Between the three of them I have a guild bank and a half worth of recipes which dont stack. Its madness I know but I just am not ready to send them out the door at bargain basement prices.

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But last night I was good. I posted a bunch of left over glyphs on alliance as prices as low as 90s. I will continue to do so until they are gone. These we the left over glyphs from when I went horde side with my glyphs ... and took up most of a bank tab. They are listed to sell, I dont care how much for.

I am listing 7 stacks of each of LK enchanting mats - abyss crystals are now 50g each so it seemed a good time. The others are at equally inflated in prices. It should help with final push. I dumped seven stacks of relics of ulduar (prices didnt increase as expected - bit disappointing really), and found a few bits and bobs to get rid of. I cleared two bank tabs.

I am probably going to need to clear another two tabs before I can free up a toon. Then comes the mass transfer of crap from one toon to another before finally moving a toon back to MTRs....

But it needs to be done. I consider it therapy!