Name?

Shadow.

Surname?

Fiend.

Profession?

Minion, type 4.

Aye, times are tough for you types, ain’t they?

Well, the paycheck’s still coming in, but the writing’s on the wall.

New guy, isn’t it?

Yeah. A real go-getter.

All show, no go?

Oh, he’s got the right stuff, for sure. Quite frankly, we’re outclassed.  Gotta be honest.

How’s he doing that?

Well, first of all, he flies!  I can barely slither, and here he comes flying?  Can’t hold a candle to that!

How’s that happen?

I’m guessing the Twilight types left a few bits of research lying about, and the Temple had a look.

That’s a right shame, it is.

Well, at least I have time to find a new gig.

Well, right. What’s your qualifications?

Well, I studied in the twisted nether. Majored in Hit-and-run Tactics and Ignoring Masters’ commands. Picked up a nice Disco spec in Karazhan and romped around Northrend for a while. Spent most of my time recently in Shadow spec questing about. Seen Alien about 1,344 times and it keeps getting funnier EVERY SINGLE TIME I see it.

Hm. Yes. Very good.  The computer’s coming up with some nice candidates.

Great!  What you got?

Well, we got this walk-in part in Westeros that pays pretty well.

Cold there, isn’t it.

That it is. Hm. Do you have a hairnet?

I don’t  have hair.

Right, that would be a no.  How are you with numbers?

Um, not bad.

Right. Okay, luv, I’ve got a few options here.

Yes?

First, we have several entry level openings in the food service industry.

That’s not really my gig, though.

Exactly right, I thought the same. So, we have several middle-management openings in the Banking industry to do with Derivatives.

I have principles.

Oh, that is unfortunate.  Well, there’s one other possibility other than Oblivion, but I doubt you’d like it.

I’ve an open mind, lay it on me.

It’s in your field of expertise, but it’s a huge change of pace.

Come on, out with it.

Sorry, sir, of course.  Was just trying to prepare you.

I am prepared.

Warlock minion.

Warlock minion?

Warlock minion.  Type 2. A promotion, actually.

…

I was not prepared.

Sorry, luv, I tried to soften the blow.

I do appreciate that.

… Think they’d waive the hairnet?

I’m sure they would.

Well, let’s get the ball rolling then!

Right, sir. I’ll need you to sign here …

This past evening I achieved level 85, on the very last quest of the very last quest line in Uldum. Well, barring the questlines that go into the instances there.  That was pretty spiffy, actually, one of those precision landings you usually hear about over a cup of mulled wine in the tavern.  So, the next time I start questing, I’ll be jumping straight in to Twilight Highlands, rather than dealing with loose ends.

Hey, by the way – Flora informs that there are Deepsea Sagefish pools up there now. Casters rejoice!

Speaking of questing; Meta observes that after hitting 85 in a Hunter, Warlock, and Mage, that questing with a priest just seems lonely. Aside from my mana beastie and my evil clones, ’tis true, I don’t keep much in the way of company out there. I wonder if this is true of other multi-classed altaholics out there?  Is this a common feeling, that something missing when out and about as a pet-less toon?  I personally don’t get it; the fuss and mess seems like it would be a pain.

I’ve availed myself of the Transmorgrification services now being offered. While it is true that this is the same robe that The Dark Father was wearing when we caught him swinging for the other team, it has also long been the regalia of followers of the Light for decades. I wear them proudly.¹

The great thing about this service is that you have it if you want it, and if you don’t, then you can ignore it. Oh, some people couldn’t manage to keep quiet if anyone was enjoying themselves, but we have the word troll for a reason. As Flora says, haters gonna hate. I dig it, so do a few of us. Grimm’s not so thrilled, but at least he can replace that horrible helm with some stylish engineering goggles. He says it’s Engineering Pride. Best to just nod, smile, and call for another pint.

Side note: I have a theory that if the game artists would spend more time wearing the ghastly things they foist on us as "tier gear", we’d see a lot more realistic patterns emerge. The elegant simplicity of the Black Ash Robe or the Robe of Power stands out as a far better pattern than anything I’ve seen on the tier vendors’ racks for years. 

And don’t get me started on head pieces. You know what? Guys, don’t eliminate the ranged slot. Eliminate the head slot. Because you guys just can’t do it. Again, try wearing the T8 Turtleneck of Doom. Just for a day. My private theory?  All helms are designed to scare the bejeezus out of other players in PvP.  Only that joke got old real fast and now they’re stuck trying to service the same tired ideas that never worked in the first place.

Incidentally, I’d like to thank the interface designers for the "hide helm" flag. You have no idea.

Anyway.

I’ve been working on and off on a long post about how to succeed at the Glyph business without being one of those annoying "gobbo" types, but it keeps meandering off into a step by step how-to.  Got to go back to formula on that one. Soon, I promise.

So, we’re a bit content-free at the moment, apologies for that.  Grimm’s full of gloom and woe, Flora’s all excited about Firelands, and I’m just now making 85. Until I get my big project finished, I don’t have much to talk about.

Looking forward, I might heal if I can get some guinea pigs lined up for instances.  It’s been over a year since I last healed, and last night marks the first time I even logged out as Disco.

Time may not heal all wounds, but it at least makes you forget where they came from some times.

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1. And, yes, the signature image is now horribly out of date. [↩]

Being the clan’s auction bish on Alleria¹, my primary role is to pretty much not move anywhere but the AH, bank, and mailbox, with occasional forays out of the area to gain experience. But, mostly the AH and bank thing.

So far I’ve been following a fairly basic system that has kept food on the table and beer in the fridge.  Right now, everyone left on Alleria has 10K gold, after Grimm cleaned us out on he way to Azuremyst.

A lovely new tool

Now, in the past few months, The Undermine Journal has returned to life, and, being a dutiful auction bish, I decided to check it out. Raw data is a beautiful thing, so when he added an XML feed of his regular data, I jumped at the chance to do some research.  Using a little Python code here and there, Illume was able to automate the collection and extraction of Glyph data, which she and I pored over.

Let me back up just a little bit.  A big problem with the AH prices has always been the so-called "goblins" posting glyphs for ridiculous amounts. Lovely tools like TUJ can’t really extract much in the way of at-a-glance data as to what glyphs are currently the best to post. Furthermore, they tend to do silly things like undercutting to stay at the ‘top’ of the listings when one is browsing for glyphs to buy.  Behavior like this tends to skew market prices to significantly meaningless levels unless you know how to filter.

I don’t know how to filter.  Well, I do, but I can’t.

The simplest way to filter is to watch what prices that items are actually selling for. Unfortunately, TUJ does not have that data in the XML feed, and you can’t get that from Blizz, either.

The next best way is to use statistics.  I like to take the standard deviation of the average of a price over a given time, and then add 2 times the standard deviation above and below that². Any prices outside of the band thus established should be considered an error and not trusted.

With over 400 glyph recipes out there, this screams for automation. Unfortunately, I haven’t got access to the data I need to make those tools yet, so as of right now, statistical analysis of post prices is out of the question.

Back up and punt

So, if the main problem is that there are a number of unreliably high prices for glyphs cluttering up my lovely data feed, what can I do about it? I considered filtering based on an exception filter (as erroneous prices showed, add the glyph to a list of exceptions that will never get listed) but the permanence of that solution precluded some random glyph suddenly coming into favor.

How about turning the game on its ear?

I have a new experiment going on now, and after a couple of weeks the results are encouraging, at least with the local glyph goblins on Alleria.

Basically, I am accepting the TUJ feed at face value – with moderate sanity checking – but letting the practice of undercutting work for me.

I always undercut, as I have said in the past. So if a glyph is posted for 250g, I will generally post for 5 to ten percent lower.  I’ve enhanced that a bit. Now, if they undercut me, I’ll cancel and repost at undercut prices.

There are two possible effects:

1. Statistically, prices will get dragged down until they either sell, or bottom out.  Regardless, this reduces the false positives.
2. I sell some glyphs for some really good prices.

So far, it’s been mixed – that is to say, I am seeing both taking place.  Some glyphs are dropping, leaving the good prices at the top, and some are actually selling for these ridiculous prices.

AuctionLite, you served me well

One thing I had to do was let go of AuctionLite.  While it has served me well for quite some time, it lacks an easy way to (a) see which of your auctions are being undercut, (b) and let you cancel them right there.  I had to flip back and forth between various tabs, very inefficient.

Fortunately, Auctionator had my back. This addon recently came to my attention as a potential replacement for AuctionLite, but since I didn’t need to replace it, I didn’t pay much attention.  Once I started looking around for something to streamline the cancel cycle, though, it came back to mind.

And, honestly, I don’t even know if Auctioneer (AKA AUC-suite) does this as well as Auctionator does, but one thing is for sure – if it did, it would do so at the expense of a lot more memory.

The dawn of a new age

Thus tasked and thus armed, I set out a couple of weeks ago to try out my new strategy. 

So far, it’s been very rewarding.  False positives are decreasing, throughput is up, and profits are up.   Glyphs that rarely sold before, sell quite frequently now, and for consistently higher prices.  On the flip side, some glyphs that traditionally brought in more, are taking a hit because I am no longer posting and letting them sit – and thus, the final price is usually below what I would have otherwise gotten.

Still, the tradeoffs are well worth it. I would say I have doubled our income in this short period.  It’s possible this is a fluke, or that the goblins will decide on some retribution, but I really doubt I figure on their radars.

The next part of this experiment will be when Grimm applies this body of work to Azuremyst. He has recently dropped Mining and picked up Inscription, and is in the process of skilling up. Once he tops out, we’ll see how well this process carries over.

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1. It still sounds so odd to add that server disclaimer! [↩]
2. This is often called a ‘two-sigma band’ in engineering circles. [↩]