Today I will talk about tunnel vision and why it can be harmful when you are just starting out on your gold making journey.
Limitations for new gold makers
The strategies you can successfully implement as a gold maker will vary with a lot of different factors both inside the game and outside of it. We won’t touch the ones outside the game in this post, but we will focus on the one that is by far the most limiting if you are just starting out.
The amount of gold you have available to play with.
Cash is king
There is a reason why so many people suggest that you take up herbalism or mining or both if you are starting out. Playing the Auction House with little gold and little experience can be a daunting and very difficult task.
You are likely to make mistakes that will cost you gold. You will have to make those mistakes at some point regardless, but if you get more capital then you will spend less time before you are back at it. I’m not going to take that debate here either. The point is that your capital is extremely limited when you are starting out.
Diversification
This is the main point. When you have little gold to invest you will end up investing a very large part of your gold in a single market if you enter it. If you do this at the wrong time or in the wrong way you will lose gold. This will not only be a step back, but it will be extremely discouraging.
Another scenario is that you enter a market and it works for a little while before something happens that makes it unprofitable.
In both cases you would be MUCH better of if this was not your only market.
What is a different market?
To diversify you need to have some idea of what a different market is. Material flipping is the perfect example. Material flipping might be seen as one market, but it is in fact several similar markets. The people buying ore are not the exact same people buying fish, although there likely is some overlap.
Generally speaking you should either cover several different professions or several different forms of content.
A lot of gold making is always focused on end-game content, and these markets are best when starting out as they sell quickly. The issue is of course that during content lulls profit margins may be slim, like right now. Long term you should aim to add some cosmetic markets as well, as they have a slightly inverse cycle to end-game stuff.
Don’t get stuck doing just one thing
Gold making is not about finding the one market that will make you rich forever. It is about continuously changing your approach as the game changes and focusing on the items that are the most useful right now.
Don’t get stuck on one thing, even if it works. Always experiment as your methods will be changed eventually.
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