My Profits, My Farewell

In my previous post, I wrote about my Bass Pro Shop.  This post will give a breakdown of what I have done to increase my wealth since that day.  This post is not made to brag.  I'm actually posting it as a means to show the community where my money has came from and reveal my markets.

I've been asked on Reddit a few times how much I am worth now.  I will be honest.  I don't really know.  I've come a very long way since the days of my Bass Pro Shop.  I don't know how wealthy I am compared to the rest of the server though.  It would be very interesting to find out. 

Today I own two thatched farm houses, nine 16x plots and four private workstations in the Northwestern corner of Sanddeep.  I also own a 16x plot that I use as a depot in Halcyona.  All of my land, except my depot, are used for Aged Cheese Larders.

I make around 233 gold a day in profit (52% margin) from the cheese larders on my land.  This gives me a monthly profit of around 7000 gold (13,300g total revenue).  This value would be higher but with the recent spike in labor prices, I've not found anything profitable to grow in the center of the 16x farms amidst the Cheese Larders.  Normally, I would look to grow Azaleas and Narcissus as they are used in my gold making and they sell reasonably well on the auction house.

I am currently 40k+ in Carpentry.  I have leveled it up profitably (which is why it is taking longer than normal to cap).  On an average day, I sell 8-10 Regal Crafting Tables.  Regal Alchemy, Regal Cooking, Regal Anvil, Regal Handicraft and Regal Plate Forum.  Each of these tables make 8-15g profit and use basically the same materials.  Archeum Ingots, Silver Ingots, Gold Ingots, Sturdy Ingots and the respective Design.  On top of that, I sell Monarch's Spacious Beds.  I usually sell 4-6 of these a day with a mark-up of around 6 gold.  I would average my daily Carpentry profits to be around 103.5 gold from Regals and another 30 gold from Spacious Beds.  This will bring me to about 133.5 gold profit a day from carpentry. This comes to 4005 gold a month from Carpentry profits.

Due to the Regal Tables using ingots, I've branched into the Sturdy Ingot market as well.  I usually make around 1.5 gold profit per ingot sold.  (This value was much higher during the first days of the welfare give-a-way of TS trees.  Sturdy Ingots were profiting up to 6 gold each.)  I average about 10-15 Sturdy Sells a day.  I would estimate my profits to 18.75 gold a day or 562.5 gold a month.

Sturdy Ingots also brought my attention to the Opaque Polish Market as it is required to make the Sturdy Ingots.  This isn't the most profitable market as I usually made around 60 silver per polish.  I mainly just sell off the extra polishes left over from making the ingots.  I sell around 15 of them a week.  That's 9 gold profit a week and 36 gold profit a month.

I also flip items on the auction house.  I use my "benny to singles" method where I buy 100 stacks and relist for triple the price in singles.  Using this strategy, I've sold tax certs for 3 gold each after purchasing them for 80 silver.  Fusion Alembics that I purchased at 1.9 gold each, I've flipped for 5 gold.  A smaller, less profitable market is the Gilda Dust market.  These have been cheap, 20 silver each, but sold for 60 silver.  Sales vary but I would guesstimate that I make around 30-40 gold a day in profit off flipping these items.  If we average this to 35 gold, that will bring my monthly profits to 1050 gold.

These have been my main sources of profit since the Bass Pro Shop.  When I add up all of my primary ways to make money, it looks like this

Daily Profit: 233+133.5+18.75+1.2+35= 421.45 gold

Monthly Profit: 7000+4005+562.5+36+1050= 12,653.5 gold

 *These figures take into account land taxes, auction fees, materials, labor, eco fuel and payroll to help haul larders.

 ** 12,653.5 gold a month is enough to patron 42 accounts at 150g per Apex.

As I have acquired more capital, I have invested it into Apex.  Apex has steadily been gaining value since release.  During the spikes from Trion's interference in the economy, I have typically liquidated my entire stock and rebought once prices return to normal.  I do the same thing with Worker Compensation potions.  This usually brings a 25-30% return on Apex and Worker Pots. 

I take almost all of my profits and reinvest into my ventures.  Often this simply means buying more land to increase my larder production.  I've always tried to keep my gold growing and making me more gold.  It is how I have grown as quickly as I have.

As I stated earlier, I do not write this to brag.  I write this to tip off other would be marketeers of the profitability of the items I have listed.  I do this because I will no longer be participating in those markets.

After much consideration, I have decided to quit Archeage.  I have had a lot of fun in the game but due to the terrible decision making and overall management by XL and Trion I cannot support them any longer.

I wish everyone the best of luck and the greatest adventures in Archeage.  It has been a pleasure gaming with you all.  I hope for your sake that Trion/XL turn it all around.  I seriously doubt it but only time will tell.

I personally am considering a career as a starship pilot in a place called New Eden.  Maybe I can blog about that some day.

Farewell my friends.

Ala

How I opened a Bass Pro Shop in Archeage

How It Started 

One day a little bug sneezed and ultimately it made me want to be a Day Trader.  Day Traders, aka Flippers, buy items on the auction house and then relist them for a higher value to turn a profit.  I didn't have much gold but I figured I could start small and work my way up.

I started out with around 50 gold.  It wasn't a lot to a lot of people but it was over half what I had at the time.  I planned to invest my 50 gold into anything that could turn a quick profit.   I went to the auction house and started looking around for an opportunity.  

It became very apparent rather quickly that I had no idea what I was looking at, what I was looking for, or what I was even doing.  I didn't know where any of the items came from.  I didn't know what they were used for.  I certainly didn't have a clue as to what they were worth.  I was completely lost.  Once I was confused enough, I said "Fuck it", shut the auction house and went to level my fishing proficiency. 

I had read on the forums that sport fishing was extremely lucrative so I wanted to be a fisherman.  I bought a Wrapped Bamboo Rod and some bait worms and off I went.  I was going to be a rich fisherman one day.  Needless to say, I almost went broke buying worms loooong before I could sport fish profitably.

I was spending way more on worms than my fish were bringing in.  My need for worms finally got me to the point that I couldn't afford to buy another Bamboo Fishing Pole.  Seriously... worms are like crack to a lowbie fisherman.  You cannot get enough of them.  You will do very immoral things for more of them.

So there I was,  I needed more gold to buy a fishing pole so I could level my fishing high enough to sport fish and make some gold.  It was quite the predicament.  Without gold I couldn't make more gold.  I needed rod gold to make worm gold to make more rod/worm gold but couldn't make the damn rod gold to even get started.  What... The... Fuck... I gave up and went questing...

I quested for a few hours and made a few gold that way.  It was dreadfully boring though so thought perhaps I could afford another rod now with the gold I had just earned.

It wasn't enough.  I could sell my worms and buy one but then I would have a rod with no bait, which is just as bad as bait with no rod.  Not having gold was a terrible predicament to be in.

The Epiphany

At that moment, I had an epiphany: "If I craft the rod, it should be cheaper than buying one."  I opened the folio, looked up the Bamboo Rod and wrote down all of the materials required to make it.  I price checked each of them and what do ya know, I could actually afford to craft one. 

I bought all of the materials and crafted my rod.  Off I went, set on going fishing.  About half way to the dock I had an idea. "If I sell this rod I could make a couple of gold profit from the sale.   I could then use that gold to make another one to sell.  If I sell it too, I can use the profit from both sales to make two rods.  I could then sell one and use the other one for me!"  If I kept doing this, I could basically get my rods for free and maybe pay for my worms too!

I made the rod.  Sold it almost instantly.  I made more rods which also sold very quickly.  Needless to say, 20 or 30 Bamboo Rod sales later I had no interest in sport fishing.  I had found my calling.  I was going to open a Bass Pro Shop.  

My Bass Pro Shop 

I started selling Hooks, String, Reels and Rods.  I was even flipping worms that I had picked up cheaply.  Anything that I could craft that was fishing related I made and sold.  Why?  It was the only thing in the game that I had any bit of knowledge about.  I exploited that little bit of knowledge to make a profit.  I had found my niche!

I started to learn the markets.  I started learning what sold and what didn't.   What was profitable and what wasn't.  Since I was crafting all of the components myself, I was also starting to learn what the base materials sold for as I bought them off the auction house.  This allowed me to stock up on materials that I found to be cheap (using bids or low priced buyouts) which in turn gave me more profit on my crafted items.

I also noticed something really strange with pricing quantities.  If I buy a 100 stack of something, I can get it at a cheaper unit price than if I only buy 5 or 10.  This lead to me buying my materials in bulk, which lowered my costs and allowed me to keep up with the now lowering sell price of my crafted items.

A side effect though was that I was ending up with more materials than I really needed.  As a result, I would break these extra materials into 10 stacks (dimes), 5 stacks (nickels) and 1 stacks (singles) .  Next I would relist them for higher than I bought them for in the 100 stack (a benny)*.  This process, called "Vertical Integration", allowed me to not only profit from my crafted items but their base materials as well.  It also gave me an edge against my competition.

   
* I could buy Bamboo Stalks at the time for 9 silver each in a benny.  If I sold those same 100 bamboo stalks in nickels, I could sell them around 18 silver each.  Singles could sell for as much as 25 silver each.

Now I was profiting not only from my fishing gear but also the materials required to craft them (known as the "Sub-Market" or just "Subs").  This gave me a VERY firm grasp of the Bamboo Fishing Pole market.  It also allowed me to predict price increases/decreases of items that I sold.  Since I was invested into the subs of my primary markets, I could craft cheaper (using profits from the sub sales to offset my expenses) and thus sell cheaper than other merchants.  This lead to lower profit margins but a higher turnover volume, increasing my profits.

I ran my Bass Pro Shop for about a month using my profit to invest into more profitable ventures.  Once my auction slots filled with higher profiting items, I stopped trading in the lower profit ones.  I finally closed my Bass Pro Shop altogether when I sold my last Bamboo Rod.

That was my first business venture in Archeage.  It's how I got seed gold I needed to actually get started in the Apex and Workman's Compensation markets.  Since then, I've grown my net worth rather quickly.  I've began crafting more expensive items, as well as, trading in their respective sub-markets.  My dream of finally becoming a day trader came to pass.  I trade in several different markets, as well as, flip occasional items that I find in /faction chat.  While I'm no where near being rich ingame, I would consider  myself very successful.

I owe it all to that Bass Pro Shop.  The lessons it taught me were invaluable in my continued success.

And to think, it all started because a little bug went achoo!