GrayzBDF's Goal Post

Like many other readers and authors, Critical loves scouring the internet for interesting blogs. When you find a good one its a special feeling. You are part a small group who have stumbled upon a treasure trove that you and few others know about.

GrayzBDF seems to have discontinued his blog but skimming through some of his older posts, this is what made Critical get a strange tingly feeling and go, ZOMG SOMEONE ELSE EXACTLY GETS IT!

People can say what they want with whichever arguments they have, but it's simple; I choose a goal, learn what I need to get there and do it. Every single time that I choose a goal and shoot for it, I reach it, without fail. It's all just a matter of how long it takes to reach the goal, if you do the same things that other succesful people do. You can't fail if you're on a successful path. And success is simply "the realization of a worthy ideal" -Earl Nightingale. Brian Tracy would argue that you can reach any goal, "within reason", which may hold true, but most of the time human beings hold themselves back more than they push forward, so I simplify it and say if you can imagine it, you can do it.

Top 5 Reasons You NEED to Subscribe TODAY! (NSFW)

After intensive surveying and sending out thousands of questionnaires and collating answers (no not really), here are (in quick fire format) the Top 5 Reason You Should Subscribe to Critical's Blog Today!

Week 12 Blog Stats

Another week another blog stat post. Happy to see things returning to normal and not regressing due to bad publicity. Week 12 ending 26 November 2011:

 

Why Co-ops Suck

Because you have to follow rules.

What happens when you break even one rule? Any and all agreements previously agreed upon, including informal non-ah related ones, are nullified instantly as we can see with Brent not wanting to tank for Foo.

Now I wont argue that co-ops dont work. Critical has never tried, how can you say caviar tastes yuck if you have never tried it.

But I mean really, how can you have fun with different posting strats if you have to follow set rules? All you can do are lame, tame, non-Critical-like stuffs. That dont sound like fun.

PS: had no idea u guys were on the same server.

Dear Foo, Mox and Brent ...

After another dumb argument Critical finally realizes: No one method is best. Yes yes it sounds strange for Critical to admit his methods are not best. Ya'll finally got it out of me.

Our arguments are almost as lame as arguing that Rook to e4 is a bad move (or good). We shouldn't be saying, this strat wouldnt work against me so thumbs down. It is true most straight forward strats wont work against us because we're very experienced pro glyphers who have done glyphs for years over multiple patches and expansions. We are very good at implementing very complex strats and fine tuning on the fly very fast.

We should instead be assessing why the strat topic at hand, is a good strat (or bad) and what might its strengths and weaknesses be, and/or what are possible counters.

I believe (well I hope anyway) our readers are more interested in this sort of discussion than the argy bargy I'm right your wrong arguments we always get caught up in.

Croda's Glyph Blog

Yay another glyph blogger!

Welcome to the blog club, beware the many critical commenters (I thought I was the only one, boy was I wrong). Havn't had a chance to have a thorough read-through yet but I likey your consistent daily posting schedule.

PS: for some reason your Profile doesnt show your blog. Otherwise I would've added your blog ages ago.

Critical's War - Triple Walls Conclusion

Remember Critical's triple wall war post? Seems like ages ago!

Recap of this mini experiment:
- took down all auctions (empty AH)
- start with little gold (<50g)
- cleared, reset and emptied mysales data
- load up 3 walls cleanly and neatly
- leave them up all weekend, dont touch them at all dont even log into wow
- wait until after auctions have expired (more than a week later actually) then open both mailboxes
- rub hands with glee

How-To Production Queue via Mailbox

Today's post is quick and dirty because Critical is sleepy.

A production queue is where you "queue" up mass amounts of mats in a crafting alt's mailbox. End result, mailbox full of mats waiting to be processed:

Best 28 Glyphs!

Last week Critical managed to sort out his sales data and finally figured out the actual worst selling 28 glyphs of all time. Holywarrior also asked how did I extract sales data into excel. Well I cant find the consortium link where someone created and shared a java jar program that does the extraction so I cant really do a How-To.

This is my nasty, simple way using mysales (bit lazy to learn TSM_Accounting):
- install and run mysales to collect sales data
- ready to extract data, then find the mysales.lua in WTF folder and cut and paste it somewhere else (which forces mysales to create a new empty file the next time i log into wow)
- use msconvert.jar program which converts the txt into csv
- open the csv file in Excel, use Txt to Columns and save the resulting spreadsheet as a .xls in Excel
- tada

Anyway thats not the point of today's post. Today is the opposite of last week, here are the best 28 selling glyphs! As an added bonus I also included a quantity sold column!

Showing the bottom 28 (highest selling) glyphs of the sales list.

Week 11 Blog Stats (Updated)

Archives back up sorry I took em down, was sick of the accusations I was pulling a publicity stunt to get more view counts and new viewers.

Easing back into routine slowly, no massive pro glyph post today just the usual weekly stats for Week 11, ending 19 November 2011:

Critical's Apology

There is no way that you can outrage an entire community and not be wrong. Hence upon hours of reflection please find below final closing remarks relating to my last post.

Gold Queen - Are We Being Played? (Update 5)

Critical has been thinking about this for a while since the Gold Queen's first RL post, and after that the daily bombardments of gold posts which always include a funky income earning link.

Dont get Critical wrong. On the AH yes he is a jerk, but in Real Life he always donates to charity gold coin collectors and co-sponsors 2 World Vision children because its the right thing to do. This was one of those on-the-fence posts and I hope I dont lose readers because of it.

The question Critical is asking himself is as per the title: Are we being played by Markco and Co, professional social internet manipulators?

Arcanedemog's Glyphs (Real Floor)

Arcanedemog asks:
What would you recommend for a glypher who has no floor? i have used the floors and ceilings and now currently employs a glyph wall to hold prices at the bottom of my threshold but one toon stands out at undercutting no matter the price. 
-------------------------------

Ok Critical admits he corrected some spelling and grammar, but 99.9% is what he posted. Quick fire Critical comments:

Bad 28 Glyphs of all Time!

Ok Critical Readers (yes Azz this is for you), Critical spent a WHOLE SUNDAY AFTERNOON learning how to do pivot tables in excel to bring you this info so you better click this page 100 times and boost my page count.

The "It Was My Twin!" Excuse

At the last count there are 6 blogs that Critical knows of, that has mentioned Faid's scathing review of a payment required guide:

Metamora's Glyphs

No Critical War update today, as you can see glyph walls are still down (as of time of posting). Today's post is a quick one getting Metamora started on his long journey ahead.

Facts according to OP:
- Meta can craft all glyphs
- he resides on Malygos

Critical's War (Day 11)

Day 11 of Critical's War on Terror! 

No wow, just letting the walls stew for another day. Thinking of getting a new iphone. Siri vs 3GS hmmmmmmmm....

Week 10 Blog Stats

Time surely goes by quick.

Stats for Week 10, ending 12 November 2011:

Critical's War (Day 10) - Weekend Triple Walls

Day 9 of Critical's War on Terror! 

The original plan was to tank the market during the most busy period of the week thereby reducing everyone's GPH and encouraging as many glyphers to quit as possible. But as you can see from this Gladiator update, everyone seems to be taking a break hence squeezing the market further not really required.

So today's post is a little special. Aim is to demonstrate a clean cut execution of triple walls (nothing else). Here's the new plan:
- pull all glyphs down from AH and start from scratch/zero
- load up triple walls once neatly and leave them alone for the whole weekend ie no cancelling or relisting
- only open wow after the 48hr period ends and see what sort of sales figures were achieved
- walls will be set as 3x 25g, 5x 39g, 4x 99g @48hrs

Cancel all glyphs.

How-To Focus Fire a Competitor

(See Bolded header below for the actual How-To if you want to skip the intro)

The War updates actually take up more time that I thought they would. This How-To guide describes how to focus fire on one competitor, in this example it's Hottempered:

Critical's War (Day 9)

Day 9 of Critical's War on Terror! 

After clearing mail then conducted a status scan and also checked out TUJ. As of the scan, Hottempered is the "highest" threat. Time to focus fire.

Day 8.5 spent some time resupplying.

Critical's War - The Gladiators (Update 2)

Critical's Weapons of Mass Destruction seem to be having a good effect (for the glyph buyers of Tich H and Critical at least). Let's have a quick look at the major competitors:

Badmage is a Good Mage

While Critical may look like the devil to the other scribles on Tich, but see he's an angel to Badmage for giving back his accidentally mailed stuffs.

Badmage boost my page count by 1!!! I need all the help I can get to overtake Mox!

Critical's War - First Week Sales

Quick post, as promised here are the sales figures for the first week (7 days of sales) of Critical's War. Full report here in google docs):

43,654g / 2,055 glyphs = 21.2g average sell price (after tax). Pretty meh no?

Critical's War (Day 8)

Day 8 of Critical's War on Terror! 

So 2 days ago Critical loaded up triple walls (lowest wall 25g), and yesterday loaded up a single solid wall at 24g x 4 glyphs. Plan for today? Single wall 23 x 5 glyphs.

Why 5 per glyph? Because the old triple walls will be falling off the AH soon and need to make sure the new wall and the 24g wall are strong enough to handle a full buyout attack.

Why 23g? Glad you asked. This is what the observant pro glyphers will see. A hard cap set a few days ago at 25g, and then the next day 24g and then now 23g. Everyone and anyone's grandma can see the pattern. So thats not a problem, they "know" and expect the price to drop by 1g daily. So what is Critical gonna do? Crash that price line by more than 1g! Just to screw with them! Especially during their free/active/leisure days of sat and sunday!

Critical's War - Weekend Plan

Remember the 24g wall (of course you do it was only 6 hours ago!). As with my Critical War updates, that one was also time delayed approx 1 day.

Today Critical is going to do something different. He is going to tell you his plan BEFORE he executes. Did that make your eyes open? Get your pen and take notes, Critical is only gonna say this once (dont worry I wont remove this post I'm just kidding).

Critical's Blog Wars

Critical loves declaring wars on everything (well, only stuff he has a chance at winning duh).

Critical's:

MoxNix @ thegoldmint.blogspot.com (dont click and boost his view count!):

 

So close I can almost touch Mox's 5mil gold pile!

Critical's War - Why the Single 24g Wall?

Yesterday Critical threw up a single 4x 24g wall and didnt really get time to go into detail why.

So anyway some quick background info. There already was a triple wall up (25g, 39g, 89g). The purpose of the solid single wall of 24g was to:
- patch/fill any gaps/holes in the 25g wall
- maintain a low price point for all glyphers to brawl below, among themselves
- undercut the glyphers who undercutted my 25g glyphs by 1cp, which in turns forces them to keep up the downward spiral

Why? What's the purpose? Come, play some games with Critical. THIS WILL BLOW YOUR MIND.

Critical's War (Day 7)

Day 7 of Critical's War on Terror! 

So yesterday was the first day of loading up clean triple 3-glyph walls. Herb prices still too hot, not aiming to squeeze or rock the boat. Plan is to leave the triple 25g, 39g, 89g walls alone and load up a single wall 4x 24g underneath.

triple 3-glyph walls booya.

Critical's War - The Gladiators!

So we've just passed Day 6 of Critical's War on Terror! 

It's time to follow some of Critical's own advice and look at who Critical is up against. I gotta say ... holy shitcakes. It used to be me vs Nafal and Shamanta only. With nobody smashing prices down and everyone doing the 1cp undercut game from 200g downwards, theres a whole new horde of scummy glyphers on Tich. Critical likes!!

What's Critical's short term goal? To convince my new buddies to do the poor Buyers on Tich Horde a favor and list their glyphs cheap below my floors. Or ... take a break from glyphs for a month and let the big boys play.

That's right. Critical is calling you out!

Critical's War (Day 6)

Day 6 of Critical's War on Terror! 

As you'll see from pic 3, quite a few glyphs were able to get "reset" back up to a high price. At the same time because its midweek, herb prices are shite. So, a slight change of plan. Critical is breaking out ... TRIPLE WALLS YEA BABY YEA!

Plan? Let the glyphers fight it out below my lowest wall (25g) and slow down my own sales rather than sell sell sell and have to replenish stock with medium/expensive herbs. Have enough liquid gold (approx 10k) to be able to snatch up a truckload of cheap herbs when they pop up (maybe this weekend). Then squash mass herbs and then BOOYA crash the price down to 16 or below again for fun and gigs.

Critical's Worst Enemy

Critical has the worst competitor of all time. 10 times worse than any of your competitors:

Sapy/Sapu (unfortunately) is the author of TSM lolz. While he's running a super powered mega modified version, us common folks are stuck slumming with version 2.5 and getting hit all the time with "GIMME YOUR CASHCARD PIN NUMBER TO PROVE YOU ARE NOT A BOT!".

/sigh why Critical's server AND the same faction. Why couldnt you have chosen Alliance!

Critical's War (Day 5)

Day 5 of Critical's War on Terror! 

Load up Discretetime's auctions and have a peek
in his shop.

Critical's War (Day 4)

Critical's War on Terror! (Warning alot of work done today).

Actually we start with Day 3.5 halfway through the day (see below for night time Day 4):

Did status scan.
Found a hole dammit.

Week 9 Blog Stats

I have to say this blog is evolving very nicely. Still want to crank out a few more important foundation How-To guides but so far a pretty good mix of reference material, case studies, live experiments, nosy opinionated commentaries ... you likey? Then drop a hi in the Comments below if you're a new Critical Reader! Use your real name, char name or anon, Critical dont care!

Critical's War (Day 3)

Day 3 of Critical's War on Terror! 

Check self TUJ. Got undercut on many glyphs.

Voxx's Glyphs

Voxx went from zero glyphs and inks to 6 full guild bank tabs of blackfallow and infernos, at a cost of 80k:

What would Critical do with all those inks? Go to town and wreck havoc on that server's glyph market of course!

Critical's War (Day 2)

Day 2 of Critical's War on Terror! 

Lets get started! Firstly:

Search own auctions.
Step 1: click Cheaper
Step 2: see how many un-undercutted glyphs are up
(roughly 24)

Critical's War (Day 1) - Updated

READY? DAY 1!

As per my own advice to Critical Readers: lets start with ceilings and floors over the next few days and see who and what is out there in the Tich (H) glyph game.

Today begins Critical's patent pending picture diary where a single picture paints a thousand words (which therefore does not need to be written by said author which in turn permits said author to read more gold blogs for pleasure). I make no excuses. You are going to have to think and figure out for yourself what is going on. Luckily for you Critical has been preparing a smashing treasure trove of reference material to help guide you through this long and windey journey ahead.

WARNING: IMAGE-HEAVY LOAD AHEAD. Enough with the disclaimers Critical, get on with the show dagnammit!

Critical's War - The Beginning

Plan?
1. Start with 2 alts full of 20 x 316 glyphs only again (excluding the bad 28), nothing else!
2. No BF inks and only 20g each alt for the first auction listings! (the rest donated again)
3. Gift away burning embers!
4. Use everything described on this awesome blog to pwn Tich Horde's glyph market for shitz, gigglez and your Critical Reading pleasure!

Casual Goblin Experiment - Conclusion

What's the best way to see how a competitor runs their business? Get a job there of course! I'll be honest, the Casual Goblin Experiment was meant to be a filler, for those blank idea days. But you guys have been great at giving fantastic post ideas that I have never had to use this plan B.

The purpose of this experiment was to see the glyph business from Critical's competitors' Casual Glypher eyes, characterised by:
- 1cp undercuts
- 1 per glyph
- post around once or twice a day
- in the weekends if have time, do the relist dance with other campers

5,000 Whiptails

This has been bugging Critical for ages. Today we are going to squash 5,000 whiptails and prove Belzebutinov's figures (circled in red) are wrong.

Flipping is Bad Mmmkay

Flipping in wow is the act of buying something "cheap" and relisting/selling that exact same item at a higher price earning "profit". This is different from Converting which is where you buy something, convert it into something else which has a higher value and then sell it at a higher price.

The trigger for today's post is Abeni's Reseller strategy. Nicely presented, detailed instructions and some smart thinking regarding only snatching Researched glyphs. In a nut shell its a bait and flip (something similar to Vile's AH Baiting strat).

Now Critical is not so blind as to think only his strats are right and all other methods are wrong, but there is one thing that he sees alot of players waste time on. Yup you guessed it, flipping (did the speech marks in the first sentence give it away or was it the title??).