50 USD for a gold guide?

[billyb3]

I posted this on the announce post but the internet ate it apparently. Since I am actually curious for an answer I figured I would post it here.

50 USD for a gold guide? I am fairly sure that this post won't win me a free copy but, I had to post. I watched the video and couldn't help but ask how this guide will do anything that can't be done with a website and a free addon. I have been using Zygor guides for years but, some of them fall under the category of "You want how much for that?" This is one of those guides I think.

Rather than releasing a new guide for 50 USD maybe finish the guides that have already been sold?

Thanks,
Bill

[Zygor Admin]

We know money is tight and we try our best to price our guides in a way that is affordable and competitive. Making guides for games like World of Warcraft requires a lot of maintenance work to keep up with all the changes, so we either have to charge a little more up front or a smaller amount over time. So far, customers have said they prefer the former option.

There will always be "free addons" available, but free usually comes with many caveats. With paid guides it allows us to offer a higher level of quality, support, and service that you're not likely to find with free alternatives.

That being said, we have only just begun to show what Zygor's Gold and Auctions guide can do to enhance your gold making experience. We built this product to specifically address many of the drawbacks of other "gold addons" (the tedious scanning, the complete lack of guidance on how to actually make gold, the need to combine several addons to get all the features a gold maker needs, ect.)

There will be several more videos going over this amazing product all throughout next week, so I'd recommend waiting for those if you're not convinced.

As for "finishing our existing guides" could you elaborate on what you feel is incomplete?

[billyb3]

We know money is tight and we try our best to price our guides in a way that is affordable and competitive. Making guides for games like World of Warcraft requires a lot of maintenance work to keep up with all the changes, so we either have to charge a little more up front or a smaller amount over time. So far, customers have said they prefer the former option.

There will always be "free addons" available, but free usually comes with many caveats. With paid guides it allows us to offer a higher level of quality, support, and service that you're not likely to find with free alternatives.

That being said, we have only just begun to show what Zygor's Gold and Auctions guide can do to enhance your gold making experience. We built this product to specifically address many of the drawbacks of other "gold addons" (the tedious scanning, the complete lack of guidance on how to actually make gold, the need to combine several addons to get all the features a gold maker needs, ect.)

There will be several more videos going over this amazing product all throughout next week, so I'd recommend waiting for those if you're not convinced.

As for "finishing our existing guides" could you elaborate on what you feel is incomplete?

OKAY I am not trying to be combative so, please just imagine I am saying this with no inflection or emotion.

Trade skill master is one addon (actually a suite of addons that are downloaded together or separate as you wish) and a companion windows app that is completely free of charge. I have been using it for years and have not found any caveats. It does not need to scan daily, hourly or ever really. The companion windows app just dumps data into your addon that includes "current" prices and histories along with global price and histories if you want to move things from server to server. There are several how to videos on setting up whatever market you wish to capitalize on. Or if you are really lazy you can just grab a string that imports a setup that meets your needs.

I have absolutely no problem what so ever dropping 50-100 bucks on something that will save me time and effort. But, if that something is already being provided for free somewhere else I have to ask what am I getting for my 50-100 dollars. If it is worth it I will buy it. As in the case of previous things that were originally free in the form of an addon called tour guide, that was purchased and updated then sold, I did pay for it because of added value. It was easy to see what was added (new expansions and such) where as this one I cannot see anything added.

I do know that I have yet to see all the videos showing off the "amazing product" as you put it. I am just wondering what could be presented that would be of a 50 dollar value.

As to the unfinished product, I purchased the leveling and loremaster guides for both factions. There is no loremaster guide. The leveling guides do not provide the most efficient and speedy leveling as they are. "Rares" and treasures are bypassed entirely which in some cases you run within sight of to go to the next quest.

Anyway enough of my babbling. Thanks for what has been done.

Bill

[Zygor Admin]

As to the unfinished product, I purchased the leveling and loremaster guides for both factions. There is no loremaster guide. The leveling guides do not provide the most efficient and speedy leveling as they are. "Rares" and treasures are bypassed entirely which in some cases you run within sight of to go to the next quest.

That's just because Loremaster didn't even exist for Warlords of Draenor until this past Tuesday when they added it in patch 6.1. The guides now fully cover all the storyline achievements needed to get that Loremaster of Draenor achievement. If you didn't get the achievement try re-running through all the guides again (letting it skip anything you've already done) to see if you missed any quests.

As for rares and treasures, there were concerns that a player might find some rares too difficult to solo, and treasures an undesirable detour from our traditional quest based leveling guides. The treasures are covered in our achievement guides. So it's more of a separation of the content rather than it being missing, but based on feedback like yours and other customers we are always looking for new ways to improve the guides.

[AussieEevee]

The drawbacks to TSM is that it is overly bulky (Slows down my system), and unclear.

[billyb3]

After watching the videos and seeing answers (or avoiding answers mostly) by the staff to questions posed by customers or potential customers I can't see any reason to drop $50 on this guide. If the recent leveling guide is any indication I would have to say this won't be up to the previous standards that Zygor guides used to attain. I have seen very little optimizations done to the WoD leveling guides and the travel system is jacked up.

[antacus]

My $0.02 on this topic is that you have to consider how new the guide is. I am not giving a good review of the gold guide and I am also not slamming it. I see in the videos where the Zygor team has made a few things easier but I also do not see $50 worth of purchase for me just yet. I have loved Zygor guides in the past and I am sure the newer guides, once I get to them, will be as good as I expect. For now I'll stick with the gold making systems that works for me and save my pennies for the other upgrades I am missing.

Just remember, this is a new guide. I am sure it is not perfect. It will have bugs. It will have issues. People will complain. I can say all these things as a person who has been writting programs and scripts for many many years. Anything that is new always has problems once released to the masses. Any changes to the "norm" will cause people to resist. As I said, this is only my $0.02 from teh point of view of someone with experience on the coding side. Give it some time.

[6f324e31]

I have played with Trade Skill Master and although I am sure there are folks who can make it sing, it isn't for me. It is bulky and quite frankly in my opinion overly complicated. Having watched lots of Youtube videos from experts showing how to use it I walked away still not knowing how to make it work. Having said that I am sure there will be folks who think TSM is really easy to use.

Anyway, having pre-purchased the gold guide and gotten the release a day early I made a quick 2000 gold on my first auction (your mileage may vary). I found the gold guide easy to use, didn't slow down my system, I didn't have to wait for long scans and it is working great on day one.

[blackwolf]

You could actually put more effort into the Warlords guide which is severely lacking...

[andrewc73]

As a long time customer of Zygor who owns almost all of their guides, I often have mixed feelings about their pricing, especially in light of their unceremoniously dumping both their ESO and Wildstar guides at the same time (and still not committing to any compensation or even a free guide).

However, even with the short time I've used the gold guide, I have to say I'm impressed by it. Yes, you can accomplish some of the functionality with a combination of other free add ons (and some competing gold guides), but the Zygor guide is incredibly polished and well implemented (and completely standalone). I've already made about 3,000 gold just experimenting with auctions. The quality of the addon is pretty unmatched. Yes, you can get a lot of the functionality with TSM, but they don't serve exactly the same purpose (and TSM is pretty complex overall). Time will tell if they continue to add value to the guide, but already, I think they've done a pretty great job.

Is it worth $50? That's hard to say, but I don't regret buying it. It is a premium product, but what value you place in it is ultimately up to you. If you don't think it is worth it, don't buy it. It's quite simple.

PS - now that the gold guide is out, I hope Zygor will finally get around to figuring out what to do about the people who paid a lot of money for the ESO and Wildstar guides that they dropped in less than a year.

[Cypriss44]

Thanks for your view on the gold guide andrewc. I wasn't sure if I wanted to get it or not for same kinda reasons you pointed out but I think I am going to. I also hope they give some sort of discount for wow guides purchased or something for those who owned eso or wildstar guides.

[1manarmy]

Does this guide conflict with TSM? Do you have to disable it?

[e5e690e5]

Does this guide conflict with TSM? Do you have to disable it?

I personally use TSM with this guide as I find it easier to post things over the default Blizzard UI and the only conflict I have seen is graphical overlapping when on the TSM part of the AH, but everything works fine for both when they are both active. Hope this helps.

[falcnor]

Thanks e5e. I have been disbling and enabling and reloading to be sure I don't blow things up. But it's nice to see some of the tooltips that TSM offers while I'm AH hunting.

[edcaguy]

I would like to see a demo. Is the guide good? Looks good but to me not worth the $50 I may be a buyer at $35 I usually make 7 or so thousand a week if this guild could tipple that that would be good but if not its a waste. Auctionater is fine with me and its free.