Finding farmers can be a very hard task, and on some servers it is nearly impossible. However you should always give yourself as much of an advantage as possible. To this end this blog post will help you find farmers as well as communicate with them.
So how can you look farmers, how do you spot a farmer, and once you’ve found one how do you talk to them?

Looking for farmers

Finding farmers can be a simple or difficult process depending on the server you are on. One of the easiest ways is to go to the auction house and search for the item you’re trying to buy.

If you see a large listing of the item all by the same seller then there is a good chance they are a farmer.

For example if you look at the screenshot you’ll see a large listing of herbs all by the same person. This is far more herbs than any normal person would sell at one time. While this does not mean the person has to be a farmer it is still worth checking just in case.

There are many ways you can go about checking if someone is a farmer. The first of which is to add the person to your friends list, and the next time they come online whisper them and ask. However you might not find the person online, in which case you can mail them a simple letter.

Finally you can spot farmers in trade chat. Look for people that are using very few words in their messages, such as just saying “WTS [item] [price]“. This does not necessarily mean they are a farmer, but is unusual for farmers to use much more than this in their messages.

Communicating with Farmers

So once you have found a farmer you need to communicate with them. As I mentioned before, you can mail them a simple message.

Try to keep this mail short, if the farmer does not speak English then you will confuse them by writing a long and complicated message. Here is an easy example of you to copy and paste and use yourself.

Hi there,

I want to buy [item] for [price] each.

Please send me all.

Thanks

It might look stupid and badly worded, yet it is important to use easy to read and translate words.

If they are online however then it is worth communicating with them directly, as you’ll get a much better response face-to-face than you will with a mail message.

First of all always say hi in the simplest way possible, such as just “Hello”. Then in a new line simply state what you are after, such as “I wtb [item] 10g each”. Again this may look stupid and be a poor way of working sentences, however it works and that’s what’s important.

In some cases it is apparent that the person you’re speaking to is not able to speak English very well at all. As such it can be a good idea to find out where they are from, as this will allow you to try and speak their language if possible. By doing so it will allow you to more easily communicate with them and get better deals.

As a large majority of the hard-core farmers are Chinese I have created a dedicated post to talking with Chinese farmers. This post is before this one, and you can find it here – Chinese Phrases to Talk to Your Farmers.

It is never a good idea to just assume the person is Chinese however. By starting a conversation with “Ni hao ma” you might offend the other person if they are not Chinese!

As such, start with “Hello” and go from there!

Was this post useful to you? How do you find farmers and communicate with them? Let me know in the comments!

It is widely known that a lot of farmers are Chinese, and as such I have included a list of Chinese to English phrases for you to use when talking to Chinese farmers.

You can use other online sources of translation in different languages but be aware that some of them are very inaccurate.

Before starting to use these, first ask “Ni hui jiang zhong wen ma?” which is “Do you speak written Chinese?” If they don’t then these sentences are useless to you!

I owe a great deal of thanks to Zekta from Phase 3 : Profit! for this list – as he had a friend spell check the entire thing for me and add a few corrections for me.

So thank you Zekta!

For more information on getting farmers and talking to them check out my post Finding Farmers and Communicating With Them

Today’s blog post is a quick and simple video on how to use snatch in Auctioneer.

Snatch is a great way to get the items that you need at cheap and consistent prices. A good use of snatch is too use its prices to feed into my crafting spreadsheet.

It is a good idea to snatch every time you login, or even multiple times while you are playing. This allows you to grab all of the great deals on the auction house, without having to search through a whole load of items manually.

As I mentioned at the end of the video there will be future videos on using other searches in auctioneer. The next of which is the general search to find out more about your competitors. You can expect this video on Thursday.

So for most normal players, or Prey as we like to call them at AH-Whoring.com now, opening mail is not really an issue. They typically have no need to receive more a couple of dozen at most in any one go. But how do you handle opening hundreds or thousands of mails?

Most of you won’t be saying “Easily, and with no effort on my part!” right about now.

In fact almost all of you will find it a boring, monotimous and laborous task which can take a very long time.

As most of you will have noticed, if your mailbox has more than 50 messages in the inbox, you will only be able to see the first 50 until you remove some. Even after clearing some mail it does take up to a minute or so before any new messages fill in the gaps in your inbox however.

Well there is a way to speed up this process, which is really fast and easy to do.

All you need is to simply type /reload and press Enter after you open the first 50 messages.

This will unsurprisingly, reload your UI, and suddenly your mail box is instantly back to having 50 messages in it, until you have less than that in total. So no longer do you have to wait the minute or so between batches!

If you have fairly good load times this can speed up the rate at which you open your mail by over half!

There are a couple of drawbacks to this method however.

One is that you simply get the loading screen and the progress bar until you are back in to the game. This means you can’t chat, use the AH, craft..or do anything at all on WoW in these loading periods.

You can offset this by using the time to do other things, outside of World of Warcraft.

The other is that if your computer sometimes struggles to fully load World of Warcraft, and you get ‘World of Warcraft Errors’ on the loading screen, they can happen while reloading too. Obviously if they don’t happen to you then this is not an issue at all.

It is also worth noting that using /reload updates your saved variables. What that means is all of your settings and addon data is saved once you do it.

While this trick is not new, it is something that I feel a lot of people overlook because of its minor drawbacks. On top of that a lot of more experienced players don’t share this trick with others, not because they are trying to be sneaky and hide it from you, but because they forget that not everyone knows about it!

Tomorrow’s video blogpost was supposed to be about Postal, an addon which in my opinion is essential to anyone who makes use of their mailbox… and if you don’t ever use the mailbox, you are doing something wrong!

However because my World of Warcraft account ran out, and I can’t reactivate it yet (doh!) I can’t make the video. As such there will be two r

Using trade chat is worthy of a blog post of its own, if not multiple. However I thought today I would share a quick tip with you on how to link items in macros.

This actually came up in the IRC when debussy asked if there was a way to do this.

You see, while you can copy and paste links, you can’t make a chat link in a macro by shift+clicking it into the macro text box. Instead we use a small script to have the macro link the items for us.

First before showing how you do it, I want to explain that while it might look confusing it really isn’t! Will explain it as simply as I can however.

All of the macros shown need to be on a single line – the website is just putting them on to two, you shouldn’t! If you copy and paste them they should still be on one line and work however.

/run SendChatMessage("TEXT1 "..(select(2,GetItemInfo(ITEMID))).." TEXT2","channel",nil,CHANNEL)

The things in bold are what you need to edit. Replace TEXT1 with what you want before the item link, such as WTB and then change the ITEMID to the item id of the item you want to link. Finally CHANNEL is the channel number you wish to link to (normally 2, for trade chat) and TEXT2 is any text you want after the item link.

So if we wanted to say “WTB [Netherweave Cloth] 3g a stack!” in trade we would use

/run SendChatMessage("WTB "..(select(2,GetItemInfo(21877))).." 3g a stack!","channel",nil,2)

You can find the itemid of any item in game by searching for it in Wowhead and looking at the url.

Finding an Itemid (click to enlarge)

Linking more than one item in the same line

To link more than one item in the same line is fairly simple, although it does make things a tiny bit more confusing. To do it you simply need to add another ..select(2,GetItemInfo(ITEMID)).. after the first.

So if we wanted to say “WTB [Adder's Tongue][Icethorn][Lichbloom] 20g a stack!” we would use

/run SendChatMessage("WTB "..select(2,GetItemInfo(36903))..select(2,GetItemInfo(36906))..select(2,GetItemInfo(36905)).." 20g a stack!","channel",nil,2)

Hopefully this will be helpful to you in your buying and selling in /2 !

This is a repost of the information found in the Item Overload! Bank Alts, original and best? post. I am reposting it because it is important information that needs to be highlighted on it’s own.

The following assumes, that all bank bags purchased, and all bags are of the same type – as well as the following prices.

Netherweave Bags = 10g
Frostweave Bags = 80g
Glacial Bags = 650g
Crafting Bags = 100g

As you can see, even with 32 slot crafting bags, Netherweave Bags are cheaper per slot gained. This means that if you have the character spaces and don’t mind the extra work then you are always better off making a new bank alt rather than buying bags bigger than Netherweave for your existing bankers.

Remarkably this is true even if you can get 32 slot crafting bags for 25g each! They would have to be 22g or less to be more worthwhile. The only crafting bags seen under 22g each commonly are Inscription Bags. Just remember, if you can get the crafting bags for under 22g each then they are definitely worth using instead of neatherweave.

Obviously mains are slightly different, and people are willing to prepared to pay higher CpS for the convenience of additional inventory on their most played character. This information is primarily for the storage of items that would normally be sent to bankers.

Bank alts are one of the oldest forms of inventory management, being used long before WoW even existed. There are other names used for this form of inventory management, the most common of which – especially outside of WoW – is ‘mule’.

The idea is simple; if the inventory of one character is not enough…make another! Each additional character increases your maximum total of inventory space in a linear fashion.

These characters are often unleveled and are used solely for storing goods, although there are exceptions.

What are the Advantages to Bank Alts?

Cost

Bank alts offer an incredibly cheap form of inventory management, although the cost soon starts to mount up should you try and buy all possible bank tabs. Full costs will be detailed below.

How much storage?
Every new character gets a 16 slot ‘backpack’ bag for free.
You also get an additional 4 spaces, which can be filled with a bag each.

Finally you have your bank, which has a free 28 inventory slots.
You can then purchase an additional 7 bag spaces, which can be filled with a bag each.

How many inventory spaces, and for how much?
Obviously the amount of slots available depends on what size bags you use, and how many additional bag spaces you purchase.

Netherweave bags are the cheapest option, and not just because they sell for the least amount of money! You see, a good way to ‘price’ extra inventory slots is to work out their ‘Cost per Slot’. If you price Netherweave Bags at 10g each, and Frostweave Bags at 80g each, then each slot of a Netherweave is 62s50c, whereas the Frostweave is 4g a slot.

This becomes a considerable amount of money when you are buying all 11 bags (4 normal + 7 bank).

Assuming;

All bank bags purchased, and all bags of the same type.

Netherweave Bags = 10g
Frostweave Bags = 80g
Glacial Bags = 650g
Crafting Bags = 100g

As you can see, even with 32 slot crafting bags, Netherweave Bags are cheaper per slot gained. This means that if you have the character spaces and don’t mind the extra work then you are always better off making a new bank alt rather than buying bags bigger than Netherweave for your existing bankers.

Remarkably this is true even if you can get 32 slot crafting bags for 25g each! They would have to be 22g or less to be more worthwhile. The only crafting bags seen under 22g each commonly are Inscription Bags. Just remember, if you can get the crafting bags for under 22g each then they are definitely worth using instead of neatherweave.

Wrapping Up

Bank alts are definitely a great way to store items, and to let you in on a secret sneak peak of the future post… they are always cheaper per slot than every Guild Bank tabs, if you use Netherweave Bags at 10g or less each!

In conclusion – always use Netherweave Bags, and always create more bank alts rather than increase to larger size bags.

For most ‘normal’ players, the 16 slot backpack, 4 additional bags and 28 bank slots up to 7 extra bank bags is more than they could ever need. Even if they are only using 16 slot bags, that is 264 slots. Those using the biggest 22 slot bags will have 286.

Yet for anyone seriously crafting and AH Whoring, even 286 slots sroon might not be enough. So what can you do about it?

Well there are three possible ways of handling this ‘Item Overload’

• Bank Alts
• Mailbox Bouncing
• Guild Banks

Each has it’s own distinct advantages and disadvantages, and this post will quickly touch on these points, as well as giving a brief explanation of each method – Each one will have its own blog post in the coming week however.

Bank Alts

Bank alts are probably the oldest form of item management. The idea is simple, you simply create a new character and use them for storage – giving you another 44-286 inventory slots.

Advantages

• Cheap
• Easy to manage (with addons)
• Gives you more characters to buy and sell from
• Potential for more professions, depending on their level

Disadvantages

• Sometimes more expensive than small guild banks
• Trouble of having to keep logging in and out of different characters
• Limited in number due to 10 characters per server limit

Mailbox Bouncing

Mailbox Bouncing is where you send items to a different character, but don’t go and pick up the mail. Instead you leave the mail sitting there until you need it. When you do need the mail, you simply return it back to your character.

If you don’t pick up the mail after 30 days, it gets sent back to the sender, who can just return it all over again.

Advantages

• Free to setup
• Very cheap to use

Disadvantages

• Prevents the ‘storage’ character from using their mailbox
• Very hard if not impossible to properly keep track of items

Guild Banks

Guild Banks are the new kids on the block when it comes to Item Overload. Having been out since Novermber of 2008, they provide an easy alternative to having a multitude of bank alts, or the troubles of mailbox bouncing – but at what costs?

Advantages

• Can be cheaper than bank alts, in certain circumstances
• Very easy to maintain and keep track of items
• Shared access across multiple bank alts, less logging in and out required
• Available for viewing via the Armory online – from anywhere

Disadvantages

• Requires more setting up than the other methods
• Can quickly become expensive
• Prevents joining real guilds on crafters/bank alts
• ‘Reveals’ your bank alts names

So there you have it, the advantages and disadvantages to each of the three methods, with a brief explanation of what they each are.

These are the topics I will be really going in to on each post – if you feel I am missing an advantage or disadvantage, or want me to talk about something not mentioned, then please leave a comment!

This is a hastily put together video on how to create an unlimited amount of items without worrying about running out of space.

I remember before I discovered this how annoying it was to need to create 200 JC rings and so have to stop 2 or 3 times to mail them all before there was any room to craft more. Yet this very easy technique allows you to chain craft items, as many as you want, without ever running out of space again.

All it requires is Quick Auctions 2, an alt, and at least one empty space before you start.

Current Gold Total: 2,500g
Working on: Paladin leveling (72)

Yesterdays video has been re-uploaded with a voiceover! On to the actual post…

So we all know that disenchanting, prospecting and milling take a considerable amount of time – and can’t be automated like creating Frostweave Bolts or smeling Saronite Bars can.

Yet there is a way to cut out at least some of the work. This quick video shows you how.

If you need the commands or macros used, you can find them below the video

To bring up the Enchantrix configuration type
/enchantrix config

The macro you can make to auto click yes type
/click AutoDEPromptYes

This same macro works for disenchanting, prospecting and milling – even though it says DE. There is no seperate macros for each one!

Hope you found this useful, if so please leave comments either here or on YouTube – I will cross post comments on YouTube here if I feel that is required.