Greedy Goblin

Monday, April 19, 2010

Packrats

Sometimes players I have some connection RL ("friend" was not used purposefully) ask for business tips because they are broke. They are different in several ways (some doesn't have income, others waste everything, the third group help out "friends" with "loans") but one thing is common in every broken guy: their backpack, bank (and 5 bankalts and guildbanks) are full with a mixture of cheap stuff and utterly useless crap.

The crap can be classified 2 groups:
  • "good memory" item, like T2 gear, lovely dress and other completely useless stuff. Since the game was designed to have lot of "fun", there are many-many items to connect feelings. Much more than bank slots. On the top of that, generating feelings is silly on its own.
  • "it will be good for something", like thin kodo leather, troll sweat, netherbloom and such. It comes from not trusting in the market. It is possible that I will need thin kodo leather one day. So what? I go to the AH and buy a new one.
If you look at my server transfer screenshot, you see that all my personal (meaning: not for business) items fit into 3 bags. 3 bags, not 3 bankalt's all bags. Things shall only be stockpiled if we expect price increase. If you have 10 bags of frozen orbs, that's OK. If you have 10 bags of various nonsense, that's not.

Theoretically there is no connection between a trash heap bank and gold level. However the messed up bank shows very un-goblinish personality traits. By cleaning your bank, you actively do something against these traits. Consider it an exercise to be a better goblin. As a bonus, you'll get several thousand gold from the sold crap.

Do the following: dedicate an alt for trash-cleaning. Send all the trash from all alts to him. The definition of trash is "everything that does not belong to the list below"
  • Items that belong to your industry (for example ink for a scribe, leathers to an LW)
  • PvE gear set(s). "set" means a "collection of items that belong to one task". Create profiles to the set using the equipment manager. Everything that does not belong to a set is junk
  • PvP gear set(s)
  • One bag (one = 1, not "one bag and 2 more items") of "memory" items.
As I told, send every item not on the list to the dedicated alt. Vendor all soulbound crap. Don't forget your mailboxes. When you log out, all mailboxes must be empty, except for a tradeskill-storage alt (who store for example 10 full bags of ink). The selling alt must list every item on the AH. Use auctioneer, scan before posting, set undercut to at least 40%, list for 48 hours. Don't forget to check the mailbox. Two days later pick the gold and the expired items. Relist them. Do it 2 more times. Anything that did not sell in 4 tries shall be vendored.

21 comments:

Sean said...

I think you're being lenient here. One full bag of "memory" items is already too much...

Btw, I was a little confused when you mentioned that you had 3 bags of personal items but you recommended 1 bag of "memory" items. Then I realised that the personal bags also contains gear.

Boo said...

What is the difference between having one bag of vanity crap and having two bags of vanity crap?

I'm a guy. I hoard. And I'm proud of it.

Then again, I clean out my bank about once every 6 months for your very reasons.

But I still have my link set. Do you?

Elttab said...

I agree fully, it's amazing the crap I found in my bags when I stopped raiding and decided to check what was in my main's bank. Tons of old gear I was holding onto "Just in case" that god sharded, random mats, crap from various holidays. I'd recommend even the goblins out there go through and see what they actually have, it's easy to forget what's in the second to last bag in your bank :)

Anonymous said...

I tend to obsessively store all trinkets. This had its roots in vanilla-WoW when trinkets actually offered something unique instead of just being another set of stats like they are today. I finally gave in a few months ago and got rid of all the ones with absolutely no utility, leaving only the AV trinket and the sprint trinket from Badlands as my only remaining vanilla items. It hurt to sell the Carrot on a Stick. Getting that always felt like a milestone in a character's development.

Anonymous said...

except that people play the game for other reasons than reaching the goldcap/achieving arbitrary goals that nobody else recognizes. I play the game for pvp, and most of my gear's different sets of the latest pvp gear (crit, spirit). However i still carry the brutal glad mace in my bags. Why ? Because it looks badass. There's a reason why they put time into the graphics of the items, and the looks of S4 weapons are something I appreciate. Along with that 'hardcore' item, I also carry http://www.wowhead.com/item=10515. No other reason besides that it looks amazing.

You think that carrying your top end pve gear is good, carrying your old t2 gear is bad. That's great. However I don't play this game just to gain stats. If I did, I could instead simply write random things down on an excel spreadsheet and masturbate to the awesome numbers I create and get the same result.

Krust said...

Very good post. To be honest, my characters' banks are full of junk. The gold from selling that stuff on the AH will help me hit the goldcap faster, too! (I should hit it within the next month or two).

Carra said...

I used to packrat stuff in WoW. Later on I realized that it's stupid.

Let's say the new expansion hits and you start leveling. As a miner you're getting a ton of new metal. You can bank it all and level your blacksmithing/engineering at maximum level. Or you can sell all you find and buy the ores once you hit maximum level. The second option is always going to be better as prices always go down.

Once you get that you see that it's a lot better to have a clean bank. The items will only loose their value if you let them stick in your bank.

As for fluff items? Well, I like them. I'm the kind of person who would have a full bag of minipets. And my hunter still has here Rhok'delar bow.

And why not? All serious items are on my bank alt. And it's not like I need more space.

Vinnz said...

Could you explain a bit '[...], generating feelings is silly and social on its own' ?
I agree that nostalgia feelings are obviously non-goblinist and inefficient, but I don't get how they are social (we never show to anyone that T1 helmet; we only remember how happy we were when we got it).

Zazkadin said...

My main's bag is filled to the brim with nostalgia items (if it wasn't, why would anyone need bank alts?). I found one justification: I used my T1 set when I had my figureprint made (much to the bemuse of all my non-WoW-playing friends...), but since then figureprints catered to the goblins by allowing everyone to create their figure with T1.

I must conclude then that I am a social. I like to do achievements too.

TheGrumpyElf said...

I really need to listen to your advice on a few points. My mains bags are filled with stupid crap. Some will find it's way out when I am done getting the rep for certain factions and then throw away the unneeded items.

Other stuff I should throw away like all that holiday junk. Who really needs clothing that is useless or old tier items. I will keep my level 60 epic bow however. That is something I would never want to get rid of.

I also need to do what you said with my bank alt but can not bring myself to do it. I have so many "it might have some use" items that I could level nearly any skill with limited AH visits. However, selling it to free up space would be beneficial to me in the long run and I can always buy back the items I need later.

What do you do with the 100s of recipes you get for things like leather working, blacksmithing, engineering, etc.? I always keep one of each for professions I do not have on a top level alt yet so I can use them if needed. Is that a bad habit as well? (I am sure it is)

Nice article. I should take some of your advice even if I know I won't.

Blizzard could make life so much easier and just have everything stack to 1000 and then the problem is solved. (Or at least change some to 20. I have 8 stacks of large fangs at 5 each when it should only be 2 stacks of 20) But people would like that, so I don't see them ever doing something that so many people would find good.

Nielas said...

While cleaning out your bank slots every few months is a good idea the correlation to being 'broke' in the game is purely coincidental.

It is not a question of 'nostalgia' but of simple money management. You can have 10 characters with their banks full of vanity items and obsolete mats and still have thousands of gold. The way the game is designed right now, gold can be obtained in sufficient quantities by simply playing the game. If you are not an idiot with your gold, you will have plenty of gold for repairs, enchants, gems, flasks and crafting without farming or 'working the AH'.

If you do not like to bother with the AH then it makes sense keeping a few stacks of old mats 'just in case'. With 20 slot bags bank space is plentiful with 10 characters per server. Considering how trivial it is to obtain sufficient gold in the game, selling that stuff for a few gold is just not worth the trouble.

Klepsacovic said...

My bank bags are not used for any gathering or AH purposes. They are a one-time cost of bag slots and bags to be able to carry around old, pointless gear. Sometimes I put it on and wear it around. My ape sub-routines tell me that people are impressed and that I am more likely to get a mate due to my colorful plumage.

It is my character bags which make my gold, and those I keep as empty as I can, while still keeping my sets handy.

N said...

I have an alt for exactly this purpose. It makes about 500g a day, surprisingly enough. All the little stuff adds up fast.

Anonymous said...

I am a packrat. And I'm broke (by goblin standards, only have about 50k). All I do for gold is epic gems with two transmute masters, covers repping and flasks with ease.

My main is a raiding rogue since 2005 and i store a lot of classic sets (T0.5 to T2 complete plus Zul Gurub and such stuff) also some of the newer sets.

Also i have about 40 weapons through all times, couple of days ago I wipped out the old Zul Gurub fists for the frost daily :-).

No deeper sense in that comment, just +1 for your theory packrat = broke.

Anonymous said...

I just recently opened my first guild bank due to outgrowing my normal bank on my charecters. I went through almost all of my old crap and began vendoring and selling anything I had no plans for in the next two weeks or possible holdings for the next expansion. The organization and ease of finding materials is amazing. I finally let go of useless nonsense. I current have so much room I don't know what to do with it. Since then I've started stocking massive amounts of materials for crafting and have begun to lower my buying cost of the materials, thus lowering my cost to make items. Best thing I've done in awhile.

Antivyris said...

I follow this sort of advice on every PvE server I touch. However, you may want a small ammendment. 1-3 Bags of RP gear is not uncommon on any active-rp character.

Now, of course, if your character gets benched for good and becomes just BankAlt5 instead of "Arcen D'Arcy, Rogue Genius", then yes, clear out the bank as best you can. This is actually even more important on an RP server, as we have a completely separate way to make gold by selling RP cloths, and very few of them soul-bound.

Ngita said...

Yes but sometimes someone is manipulating the price of thin kodo leather, so the leather you sold a year ago for 1g is now 20g. Now while turning the tables and spending a hour farming a few hundred gold of thin kodo leather to sell does have its own special pleasure but its still a pain when all you wanted was to make a green for a alt. My chucking a few stacks of golden pearls in the bank instead of vending was one of my better days.

A good clean out now and then is worth it, but their is no extra points for having a empty bank.

Anonymous said...

I've always felt when it comes to bag space, if you don't need it, it's not a waste.

This coming from the guy who has every tier set (tier 3 too) stowed away in the bank.

Then again I only use my main to handle some very specific tailoring markets. Everything else is done on alts, and I do take advantage of filling up the mailbox when needed.

Anonymous said...

I have 4 bank toons that make me money and store all my materials. I have have 5 max level profession toons that have little other than the armor on their back and things for their profession. On my raiding toon I have all sorts of "junk" from my tier sets (.5 to 9) to all sorts of achievement items that have meaning to me. I really wish Blizzard would give us some sort of trophy room for items we want to keep but will never use again as it would help with limited inventory.

For anyone that is spring cleaning ... I find ArkInventory a blessing. It helps me easily weed out the junk. Just create a special bag/category for items you want to keep and that will segregate them from the other items. Then it is just a matter of periodically reviewing the non-special items to determine whether you want to keep them or throw them out. This has made keeping my inventory as small as possible a lot easier.

Anonymous said...

I have been selling everything I have stored the last few days. I have 10 alts and my own guild bank. I made about 2k just selling old mats that I had saved.

Lady Mel said...

I promise to clean out my 3 toons banks when I return to WOW. I am a WOW packrat and usually dont trust the AH because it is 90% shitty (before I left). I hear more people are on the server so maybe the AH is more balanced.