Textures.com

Just a quick FYI for mappers... textures.com has some pretty good textures in the PBR section. You can download up to 15 1024x1024 textures per day for free too.

I'm tempted to pay for higher res versions of a few of them.

https://www.textures.com/browse/pbr-materials/114558

Many of the non PBR diffuse textures work quite well after using a tool like ShaderMap4 or Materialize to generate proper PBR textures from them.

What I've been up to lately

I finally got completely fed up with WoW and quit playing near the end of Cataclysm. There were many reasons why I finally quit WoW. Suffice to say it was something that had been building up for a long time already, then along came the news about Kung Fu Pandas to put the final nail in the coffin.

I've been playing Eve Online casually for about 8 months now. One of the things I like best about Eve is it's completely different from WoW in just about every way.

The player base seems to be quite a bit more mature too though that might be because there is no global chat channel providing a convenient soapbox for the worst sociopaths. Or maybe it's because block (Eve's equivalent to /ignore) has NO LIMIT on the number of players you can block. I love that feature and use it quite liberally!

Another point in Eve's favor is it's very cheap to play. In fact if you're any good at making money in games you can play Eve for free. You don't have to buy Eve Oline, the client is a free download and expansions are free too. All there is is a one time $5.00 activation fee and $15.00 for 30 days of game time (less if you purchase multiple months at once).

Then there are PLEX which can be purchased with real money from CCP's website or bought from other players with ISK (Eve's in-game currency) off the market in game. Any PLEX you have can be sold on the in game market for ISK or used to add 30 days time to your account. If you make enough ISK to buy PLEX you can pay for your accounts without spending any real money. I currently have 4 Eve accounts, over 50 billion ISK and easily make more than enough ISK to purchase PLEX for all the accounts every month with plenty left over to keep growing my wallet bigger.

For those who might be interested in trying Eve Online there are 2 types of free trial accounts, 14 day trials and 21 day trials. 14 day trials are available to anyone from CCP's website. 21 day trials are "Buddy" invites from existing players.

Here's a link to a free Eve Online 21 day trial from me via Eve's "buddy program". The link is safe, it leads to a secure "buddy invite" page on CCP's official Eve Online website.

Feel free to give me ( Moxnix Induli ) a shout in Eve Online if you start playing after reading this.

I'm starting a new Eve Online blog which can be found at Merchant Monarchy

Sheep and Lemmings - Don't be one!

Sheep are herd animals and herd animals follow the leader. Lemmings will follow the leader right off a cliff! Many auction players behave like sheep and lemmings.

Sheep
Sheep like to play it safe. They don't come up with ideas of their own. They just follow someone else's lead, whether it be the lead of a rich player on the server, some blog author's lead or even just following to the letter some guide full of old, outdated ideas and information. Sheep come in two types, the ones that follow the  lead of other players (rich ones mostly) on the server and the ones that dive right into whatever the latest post on their favorite blog says will make them "lots of gold" without knowing a thing about their server's specifics in that market. They can't understand why it never seems as profitable as promised for them. Tip: it doesn't work as well because a) your server isn't the blogger's server, conditions may be very different and b) whenever a popular blog posts about something a whole lot of new people dive into it headfirst.

Lemmings
It might take a while but sheep will usually notice (eventually!) if they're losing gold and will leave unprofitable or low profit markets. Lemmings on the other hand don't even seem to realize when they're losing a lot of gold. They'll just keep on going right over the cliff. You can take advantage of lemmings simply by posting under your cost.They'll keep undercutting and you can buy them out.

Moral of the story
Sheep will continue bleating the "buy low, sell high" mantra, droning on about how "1c undercuts keep prices high" while ridiculing more advanced strategies and talking about hitting the gold cap (years behind) as if that proves their methods are superior. They don't even realize market leaders who don't follow the herd have capped entire accounts in less time than they needed to cap just once.

If after playing the auction for a while you still can't spot the sheep and lemmings then you probably are one. Stop following the herd, lead instead of following and make more gold!

Cataclysm Ore Processing

Ore is one of the most basic bulk materials and can be processed in many different ways. Most auction players probably already know about the shuffle but there's more to ore processing than just the shuffle.

I'm going to limit myself to talking about processing cataclysm ores today though similar methods apply to most other ore types too. I'll further limit myself to talking only about *bulk processing methods that can help us use up mountains of ore. Pre-expansion blues have set in pretty much everywhere now so most servers should have mountains of cheap ore available.

This is the time to be buying and stocking up on things you'll sell to leveling / skilling up characters during the  next expansion. If your liquid gold keeps going down now but your stock keeps going up, don't panic. It sounds like you're doing it right to make a very lot of gold in the expansion!

Cataclysm Ore Types


Elementium
- prospects into uncommon and rare gems.
- produces a rough average of about 4.5 uncommon gems per stack and 1.5 rare gems per stack
- smelts into Elementium Bars

Obsidium
- prospects into uncommon and rare gems
- produces a rough average of about 6 uncommon gems per stack and 1 rare gem every 3-4 stacks
- smelts into Obsidium Bars

Pyrite
- prospects into volatile earth, uncommon and rare gems
- produces a rough average of about 4 uncommon and 3-4 rare gems per stack. Not sure about the earth.
- smelts into Pyrium Bars

Useful professions for ore processing

Jewelcrafting
- prospecting
- cutting gems
- crafting jewelry to disenchant
- great synergy with enchanting

Enchanting
- disenchanting
- crafting scrolls
- terrific synergy with other crafting professions, especially jewelcrafting and smithing

Alchemy
- gem transmutes
- great synergy with JC

Blacksmithing
- crafting armor to disenchant
- crafting belt buckles to sell
- great synergy with enchanting

Mining

- Smelting bars

- good synergy with smithing

The Shuffle


The shuffle (aka Elementium Shuffle or Obsidian Shuffle) in it's simplest form only requires Jewelcrafting. You prospect ore into gems, cut some gems and sell gems in both cut and raw uncut form.

Alchemy and Enchanting are commonly used to add value and often considered part of the shuffle.

You can make jewelry from uncommon gems to disenchant for enchanting materials. Either sell the mats for a quick profit or take it a step further, make scrolls with them and sell the scrolls, hopefully adding even more value.

- Carnelian, nightstone, hessonite, jasper and alicite are all good for this.
- Carnelian are often reserved for inferno ruby transmutes, but they DE into far more Celestial Essence than anything else (rough average of about 2.5 GREATER essences per spike).
- Jasper usually have the largest profit margin but produce a lot more dust than essences.
- Nightstone and Hessonite share the same DE table. They are usually the most expensive uncommon gems to buy (besides carnelian) but they also disenchant into more Celestial Essence than anything else (again besides Carnelian). This usually means a significantly larger total profit (not to be confused with profit margin) than Jasper or Alicite.
- Alicite are usually the cheapest useful gem to buy and have the same DE table as Jasper but you need 2 of them to make 1 pendant with. If you can buy 2 Alicite for less than half the price of 1 Jasper it's more profitable making jewelry with Alicite than with Jasper.
- Zephyrite is completely useless for the purpose of making jewelry to disenchant and usually sells for around vendor price.

At times it may also be profitable to craft jewelry that disenchants into heavenly shards from rare gems and volatiles. In my experience to date the only one that's ever been profitable for me is Viscious Amberjewel Band (4 amberjewel, 8 volatile water, 1 setting) though if gem and volatile prices continue dropping other such crafts could become profitable too. In particular if volatile air ever drops to around 5g Vicious Sapphire Ring (4 ocean sapphire, 8 volatile air, 1 setting) should be profitable DE fodder too.

With alchemy you can transmute uncommon gems into rare gems, mainly inferno rubies and shadowspirit diamonds (other gem transmutes may be profitable too but often are not). Shadowspirit Diamonds are particularly good for using up very large numbers of uncommon gems very quickly and in equal numbers (3 of each color per transmute produces 2 diamonds).

Beyond the Shuffle

That covers what most auction players do with their ore now and what's generally considered to constitute the "full" shuffle, but there are still a few more things we can do with bulk ore..

First of all there's smelting bars, which often sell for more than the ore goes for though smelting bars by itself isn't enough to make having a miner really useful. Of course you can take it a step further, add some more materials and smelt Hardened Obsidium or have alchemists transmute Truegold for you, but that's not what you really want smelting for either. What you really want smelting for is to smelt vast quantities of bars on demand so your blacksmith can use them to make huge numbers of things to disenchant.

With your blacksmith you make Stormforged Shoulders (or Stormforged Legs, both use the same materials) which disenchant into 1 heavenly shard. These take 2 folded obsidium, and 8 Elementium bars to make. If elementium and obsidium are both going for 40g a stack, your cost is 4g per bar and 8g per folded for a total cost of 48g per shard. If shards are usually 75g or more on the auction, you can make a pretty decent profit selling them in bulk at 70g each. If you sell scrolls it's always nice to be able to produce your own shards on demand and at a reasonable cost.

Then there are Ebonsteel Belt Buckles. It takes 4 Pyrium Bars, 4 Elementium Bars and 4 Volatile Earth to make one buckle. If both ores are going for 40g a stack, that's 2g per ore, 4g per bar and earth is probably under 1g each everywhere now for a total cost of 36g per buckle. If you can sell them for 72g each that's 100% profit, not too shabby. Another good way to make a sizable mountain of ore disappear.

Finally there are Carnelian Spikes, which take 3 carnelian to make. Many shufflers get so caught up in the cutthroat inferno ruby market they forget all about doing anything else with carnelian. I often see competitors selling inferno rubies for 50-60g each when carnelian are going for 25-30g and GCE are over 100g... Go figure! Of course when questioned they always insist they're making big bank on rubies because they get their ore cheap/free.

Another thing that's particularly nice about smelting, producing belt buckles and shadowspirit diamonds is you don't have to sit there repeatedly clicking a button. You can start up a long crafting queue and walk away from the computer until it's done. You don't have to disenchant them later either and they even stack, saving you plenty of bank / bag / mail space!

There are of course even more things we can do with ore such as using Engineering and Blacksmithing to craft items for sale but I don't consider that bulk processing and my purpose today was to talk about bulk ore processing.

Third Antonidas Monthly Mogging Contest

Parabola - 2 Honorable Mentions in Best Overall and Most Original

The 3rd Antonidas monthly mogging contest was held today. Since my usual co-sponsors/judges couldn't make it today I had to do it all alone. As a result I cut down on the number of categories this time and ran the whole thing in about half an hour.

And the winners...


Overall Best Dressed
Darkathena - 1st place for 25,000 gold
Fleurjolie - 2nd place for 15,000 gold
Xcraft - 3rd place 10,000 gold

Parabola - Honorable Mention 5,000 gold

Cheesecake
Eowin - 1st place tie 10,000 gold
Lustforblood - 1st place tie 10,000 gold
Lustforbust- 1st place tie 10,000 gold

Wuh - Honorable Mention 5,000 gold
Mindkontrol - Honorable Mention 5,000 gold

Most Original
Gratram - 10,000 gold

Parabola - Honorable Mention 5,000 gold

Darkathena

Fleurjolie

Lustforbust

Lustforblood

Wuh

Gratram

March Mogging Contest Results

The second Antonidas monthly mogging contest was held yesterday with a total of 205,000 gold in prizes handed out.

Ister - 1st place Overall Best of Show 

We will continue holding this contest on the last Sunday of every month. Categories and rules may change or be tweaked from time to time but the contest will be a regular thing. Check the Mogging Contest Page for the latest, most up to date details on the next contest.

This months sponsors were myself (Moxnixx), Mybankchyck, Jackiel and Notken. Winners and prizes for the March contest follow.

Overall Best Dressed:
1st- Ister 25,000 gold
2nd- Crythias 15,000 gold
3rd- Darkathena 10,000 gold
Farquel- Honorable Mention 5,000 gold
Bob- Honorable Mention 5,000 gold

Best Impersonation:
Squeakster 10,000 gold

Most Outrageous:
Gratram 10,000 gold
Farquel- Honorable Mention 5,000 gold

Cheesecake:
Tempt 10,000 gold
Imeatshieldl- Honorable Mention 5,000 gold






Best Dressed Bank Alt:
Myththsonian 10,000 gold

Most Original:
Ðoom 10,000 gold

Best Classic Set:
Gulvak 10,000 gold
Bob- Honorable Mention 5,000 gold

Best Use Of Plate:
Primarycrit 10,000 gold
Slateface- Honorable Mention 5,000 gold
Endlessvoid - Honorable Mention 5,000 gold

Best Use Of Mail:
Starcrossed 10,000 gold
Rangiku- Honorable Mention 5,000 gold

Best Use Of Leather:
Wuh 10,000 gold
Farquel- Honorable Mention 5,000 gold

Best Use Of Cloth:
Darkathena 10,000 gold
Sy- Honorable Mention 5,000 gold
Brekkie- Honorable Mention 5,000 gold

Finally it's too bad this needs to be said, but it's become apparent it is necessary.

It's our contest, it's our gold we're giving away and we award prizes to the outfits we like best.. If you don't like the way the contest is run, or feel it's "fixed" because your buddy didn't win, you can always start your own contest and give your gold away too. The contest is intended to be a fun event that only takes an hour or two to run.

We will not consider requiring applications from contestants to pre-judge and qualify outfits before the contest. We will not spend excessive amounts of time on judging and researching outfits during the contest and boring everyone to death either.

Antonidas Mogging Contest Results

The first Antonidas Mogging Contest is over and was a huge success. 170,000 in gold and other prizes were handed out. A few categories were difficult to judge and some lessons were learned for the future (note to self: hold the next contest indoors so mounts aren't a problem) but overall things went very well and it was a lot of fun. We'll definitely be doing it again next month!

I've added a new page to the blog with more information on future mogging contests. That page will be updated frequently.

Being the first time, we got so wrapped up in organizing and running the contest we forgot to have someone write down the winner's names until after the contest was over. We couldn't remember the name in a couple cases.

Overall Best Dressed
1st place Famine 25,000g
2nd place Soliss 15,000g
3rd place Mike 10,000g
Honorable Mentions (5,000g each) to Dreary and Jalepeno, both of whom won prizes in other categories.

Creepiest
Thegayblade 10,000g

Most Outrageous
Dreary 15,000g

Cheesecake
Szonya 20,000g
Darkbrekke 20,000g
A tie, both winners were awarded 20,000g

Best use of Cataclysm Dungeon and Raid Gear
Frostgeneral 10,000g

Sexiest Male
Jalepeno (male) 5,000g

Sexiest Female
Shocknawwe 5,000g














Most Intimidating - No picture available
Farquel
15,000g


Most Original (10,000g) and an honorable mention who got her choice of 6 Epics (she chose a Lovebird mount) are the winners who's names we forgot.

Also, the picture at the very top of this post is Eklipse a competitor with a terrific outfit who went unnoticed due to some jerk on a mammoth following her around and standing on top of her the entire time. She received a consolation prize later and is encouraged to enter again next month since we loved her outfit once we actually saw it.