🚀 go-pugleaf

On 2011-03-16, Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> That was an excellent example. Opportunity cost is a popularly
>> ignored concept in the WoW economy. The urge to "match up" a
>> gathering profession with a crafting profession helps promote
>> this mistake. It is economically unwise to ignore the market
>> value of those 15 copper ore you just mined when leveling up
>> your blacksmithing, engineering, or jewelcrafting.
>
> Yes, if you intend to sell the product, its important to make
> sure its more expensive than its mats. Surprisingly often it is
> not. It's the value of the cooldown that's the key factor in
> this case though. The reason its so hard to buy a Truegold
> cooldown from an alchemist is because of the opportunity cost.

You are absolutely right, of course. But I was thinking of the
copper ore as a resource. On most servers, you will make more
money by selling the ore, and buying the bars to use for
crafting. I think of it as reverse flipping. Just like other
forms of crafting, some smelting adds value (bronze bars are a
good example), and some takes it away (copper bars are a good
example). A miner should be responsible for knowing which is
which.

When I smelt ore it is usually to level mining.

The economic fallacy is that for most popular profession combos,
there isn't as much value added as some players assume.
Leatherworking and Skinning is quite a good combo, but only
because skinners were deprived of their rightful tanning
abilities. If there were a second profession that relied
primarily on leather and hide products, this would have to be
addressed.

> There are other reasons to make things - the flasks I mention
> are probably losses, but the guild needs them both for raiding,
> and the achievement.

Most manufacturing professions (Enchanting is a happy exception
on my server) can't be leveled without taking losses. And yeah,
if you make a gun for your Hunter, you lose gold. It's annoying
but understandable that you can't really make gold on most
crafted weapons, but guns are an exception. The ones engineers
make are best-in-slot for most Hunters, but still sell for under
mat prices on my server. I guess the market is too small.

> My current estimate is that I'll have to shell out around 32kg
> to get the mats for the Vial of the Sands. My rule of thumb is
> to never let a single purchase more than halve my bank balance,
> so it'll have to wait till I have 64k, in 2-3 weeks (at 41k
> right now).

Good spending habits can create a lot of wealth.

-- 
Neil Cerutti