I am pretty late to the blogging party when it comes to commenting on the Mysterious Fortune Card (hereafter MFC*), but that is fine, because there is nothing to really talk about. It sells. It sells in defiance to all common sense. There is plenty of text devoted to barking MFCs, undercutting, "bait & switch," and so on. You won't even need to worry about that. People bark for you, the undercutters will get bought out, and you will sell most of your stock without even trying. Price it between 35g-50g apiece and watch them fly off the shelves.
Depending on the going rates of MFCs and its market saturation, you may actually lose money doing anything else with your Blackfallow Ink. Unless, of course, you desire to profit off Inscription without even having the profession.
The above happens - look for it. Blackfallow Ink should not be trading below 10% of Inferno Ink's going rate, at a minimum. I have been selling Inferno Ink at 190g for the instant sales it generates, and with that low-ball price buying the above 60 ink for 657g would bring back 483g profit, minus the AH cut, in about nine mouse clicks. The beauty of turning Blackfallow Ink into Inferno Ink sales is that you don't even need Inscription to do it. Just park an alt in Dalaran and you are seconds away from the AH, Jessica Sellers, and the AH again. Turning those 60 ink into MFCs at 35g each would bring in 1,000g more profit however, if you did have a scribe.
...so yeah. Inscription is going to be pretty boring to talk about for the next 1.5 years.
Despite MFCs sucking all the oxygen out of the gold blog sphere vis-a-vis Inscription, I did want to offer some advice on making Darkmoon cards. The biggie? Darkmoon Card: Hurricane =! Darkmoon Card: Greatness. The latter was the Darkmoon lottery of Wrath precisely because the trinket was best in slot for most melee classes up until, and even including, Icecrown Citadel. Greatness survived four entire tiers of gear and was still amazing two years after its introduction. Hurricane, on the other hand, is likely to be outclassed as soon as 4.1 hits some months from now. It is already somewhat of a sidegrade to Crushing Weight that drops off the 4th boss in Bastion of Twilight, and people can purchase License to Slay from the JP vendor once T12 rolls around. The point is if you are thinking about jumping in, do so sooner rather than later.
I did sell a Strength Hurricane trinket for 26,000g which set the individual cards at 3250g, or the Inferno Inks at ~300g apiece once you discount the Volatile Life. If it at all looks like you can get a higher return selling the individual cards, I would do that - getting 5000g in the mail from a Three of Winds is always better than getting 400g for a Two of Stones by using Inferno Ink that would have sold five times that price. Inferno Ink that that makes each card worth at least 3500g in MFC sales at 35g apiece.
God, I hate MFCs.
*Not to be confused with that other MFC (Dane Cook, NSFW).
Hey Azuriel, nice post :D
ReplyDeleteI have stayed away from the MFC market due to it going against the way I want to play the game. Im not called BetFred or Sporting Index so I prefer to keep of the barking track.
I have noticed that glyph sales for me went back up since MFC boom. Every cloud has a silver lining and all that.
Smudger - Warcraft Corner
@ Smudger: I don't find the MFC offer itself to be objectionable, but when buying herbs at current rates makes my break even 35g/card it doesn't seem like the right time. I do understand your objection, and pass no judgment at all. There are many players who feel the same way as you. The ironic part is that if there are only X scribes and Y choose to opt out, the remaining number will have better access to this market--and like it or not, there does seem to be constant demand.
ReplyDeleteThe MFC market seems too labor intensive for me. I recently decided to give it a try. I invested 2,750g and bought herbs, milled, created cards, barked--listed the Inferno Ink. Cards sold ok, but only with constant barking. Inferno sales slow so far. And as soon as I turned around some SFP listed 50 cards at half price. I'm more of a passive AH player--set it and forget it--so I can level/quest with other toons. So far, its about break even for me, maybe a slight profit.
@ Azuriel: Darkmoon cards, however, are a different story. I'm disappointed I won't get my Scribe to 75 in time to capitalize on the Faire this weekend--but will be able to profit nonetheless.
And I completely agree with your assessment of Glyphs. I craft and list some of the better ones but don't depend on this line for my gold. Its a nice add when I have time.
I was initially almost morally opposed to selling MFCs at all. To me it smacked of the Engineers selling single bullets back during ICC: an act of profiting off deception.
ReplyDeleteEven after thinking about those cases where I am making a wild profit margin (Elementium Guardian comes to mind, mats at ~3000g and sell for ~6000g), it seems to me that I was actually adding some discrete value to the marketplace by creating goods. MFCs are "goods," but they are simply conduits between someone's gold bag and yours, otherwise creating nothing of value.
But, hey, who am I to pass judgment on how people enjoy WoW, eh? I don't understand collecting hundreds of mounts/pets when you can only use one at a time either. So I trooper on selling MFCs out of whatever Blackfallow Ink I have left over when done milling.