Abject Failure.
On the 7th of feb I was chatting to Ahami on VeCo about our blogs and what I should do next. I had my freshly rolled Deathknight with a small starter fund and a beginning enchanting skill. The challenge was set: make enough gold for epic flyer within a month.
Easy!
Well, maybe not.
I also ran the same challenge on my other new DK on Cael as well, but with less funds, and less effort. Both characters started the challenge at level 58, fresh from the newbie zone.
On VeCo, I invested heavily into improving the enchanting skill. I hit around 200 in the first few days but also spent a lot of the starting money in levelling up instead of reinvesting into the market. It took several bidding/disenchanting/selling cycles to get back to the starting point. By about mid-month I was edging above 1000g and starting to realise that I may not meet the target!
Over on Cael I farmed some low level instances (stockades, Deadmines) several times to get starting materials, as well as buying stuff from the auction house. With less money to start with, I concentrated on re-investing what I had. By mid month I was barely at 200 skill and 500g. I had put a lot less effort into it though.
On both servers I tried to log in to process auctions every 48 hours but often missed it. At the end of the month on Cael I had about 1500g in cash and ~700g in pending auctions. On VeCo, I had a little over 3000g in cash, ~900g in unsold auctions and maybe ~400g more in unprocessed materials. This was well short of the ~6500g target.
On both servers there were some mitigating factors. On Cael I invested about 200g into the guild I joined. I also levelled enchanting by enchanting most items in the guild bank, instead of trying to sell the enchants or placing them on vellums for sale. On VeCo, I yet again splurged the 100g to start a guild bank for some randoms who got me to sign the charter. Of course, the guild was disbanded a matter of days later when the GM lost enthusiasm! I've been foolish enough to do this several times now... maybe one day I'll learn!
Also on VeCo, I spent some of the time farming leather and cloth, which I passed off to my friends there to help level their trade skills. In return I got bags and a certain amount of green items. From a purely financial outlook I should have just sold the materials, but the social benefits will more than recoup any loss in the longer term.
Ah well. Both DK's are now level 60 with minimal playtime. They are both continuing to reinvest in the enchanting materials market and over time it is paying off.
