World Of Warcraft, WoW Hand Armor

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Alto vs. OreCrusher- "The Death Match"

Ore Crusher. It is a fairly new addon, so I figured to test it out a few days back (a blog hit on it, but I can't recall who or where I saw it- if it was you, holler in comments please so I can give you credit. *Edit- It was over at Trading With Zoxy- OreCrusher- Prospecting Addon). As I was writing this, midway through I took a break to read up on blogging, and Smudger did a post on his blog, The Warcraft Corner (and I hope you check it out if you haven't yet). He mentioned that he isn't a big fan of spreadsheets, and this addon basically does all the manual work of the ones that are out there. After using it myself, I was amazed at how quick it worked, and I love anything that can shave time off my daily "ritual". Can you blame me?

Now for all you folks that have been doing this shuffle for quite some time, you already have a good idea of the gold that can be made, and estimate your profit, correct? If you answered kinda, we are in the same boat....

Using this addon (or the spreadsheet that is floating out in the blogosphere, Stede at Venture LLT has a great one) takes 100% of the guesswork out of your profits, if you sell the uncuts, if you vendor, if you craft and D/E, if you transmute to Shadowspirit Diamonds, what-have-you.

Here is the addon. Not much to do, other than to enter in your cost, your # of stacks, then click "Do It". That's it. You are done. Total time, 2 seconds. Now there is a catch, you have to have your AH scan up to date. Either Auctioneer or Auctionator is fine, just do a scan and it will use the most recent information available. Ez peezie, right? 

Now for the main gunk of my post. I had to find out how accurate it is to real-time. Now we are all aware that to get an accurate number is extremely tough, especially when Blizz has the "drops" or "procs" of prospecting is all based off random numbers (or RNG), so I can understand where this can be off, but I wanted to see how far off it is. Now this is not meant to hate on the program (I can only imagine how tough it is to program something like that, and how much time was invested), I just want to know how accurate it is. So here goes:


For my comparison, I used the magic number, 100. Not that it can disappear, or pull a rabbit out of it's hat, but just because it works. And just in case, I did it twice. Two seperate sets of 100 stacks prospected. Now you are probably thinking that's quite a bit, it must have taken a long time. Well, I was surprised when I timed it.....



100 stacks. Almost 23 minutes. Now it seemed like an hour, but it wasn't. So, I got a screenie, got a count, and started fresh with a new 100 stacks for Test 2.

 Here are my results:



ROUND ONE


Jasper: 91
Alicite: 106

601 Greens
33 Blues

Now this is very close with what I have been estimating, 6 greens per stack, and 1 blue per three stacks. So nothing new here, and extremely close, give or take a few greens. So far, so good. 1st round, I call it a tie, what about you?

ROUND 2


Jasper: 96
Alicite: 110

599 Greens
34 Blues


Damn. Still extremely accurate. Now I am not necessarily looking at the exact amounts "here and there" for the greens or blues, but just going off the overall numbers. I am extremely surprised how close blizzard has this random number thing down. Fairly even across the board. Once again, I feel that round two is a tie as well.

Now I also did a comparison with the D/E'ing side of OreCrusher, and it was basically a tie as well, however I only compared Carnelian Spikes and Jasper Rings, so it wasn't a "complete" competition, so I cannot judge, however.....you guessed it, very close.

*Edit- Kammler, from Kammler's Korner updated some info in the comments below (to read his whole comment, check below):

"Also, the projected number of crafted items is not visible, and neither is the raw gem data except on the main page. For example, the data I just generated for 10 stacks of Obsidium suggests 9.6 Carnelian and 9.6 Jasper. The Transmute button says I should expect 6 Greater Celestials from the Carnelian Spikes (at a rate not disclosed per unit) for a total of 284g, and 2.8 Hypnotic Dusts (again, rate not shown) for 19.60g. Now I know the Carnelian Spikes take 3 gems each so I should produce 3 total. But it isn't shown in the data. It would be helpful to determine "what if" I sold the DE mats from two units at a high enough rate to get that return--then I could bank the extra 3 Carnelians for later.

Similarly, the Jasper Rings show a predicted 10.8 Hypnotic Dusts (total only, 75.6g) and 1.2 Greater Celestials (total only, 56.88g). I know it takes 1 Jasper per ring so that must be based on 9.6 rings. But the totals are not shown so I can't run any other models--its all based on the lowest price listed in the AH."
Now only one area that I seen was WAY off, the transmute Shadowspirit Diamonds....(I am sorry to say I did not get a screenie of the addon's estimate, but it was 74. I ended up with 64. Now that is a 2500g difference. Out of the 30 I did, only 4 procced as 3's, the rest were 2's. And yes, I am transmute spec, so I will be trying it again to see if proc's get more on my side...). With this round, we are about 15ish percent off. But I won't hate, because I think that I had bad luck there.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overall, this addon comes highly recommended if you are looking for an estimate of what prospecting will give you (at least for Obsidium- I cannot speak for the others). Now after adding and subtracting, I saw that there was just shy of 1200ish gold difference on the price it listed (for just uncut) between the two rounds, but 10ish percent is still close in my book, and it beats guessing.....this addon is definitely staying in my bag of tricks. If you prospect, I imagine this will be of assistance to you as well. Ok, now for some questions for you reading this...

Are you using this addon? What do you think? Are you as happy as I am with the results?


18 comments:

Smudger said... Reply To This Comment

Hey Alto, Thanks for the "Holla".

Nicely done, more detail than my post which is cool :D

I find all alch proccs to be very temperemental at the moment and I am fairly certain that there is no rule for this which can be intergrated into an addon or spreadsheet. This also means that all procc estimates are really really rough.

The author is updating the addon regularly so I guess it will become more and more accurate as time goes by.

Anonymous said... Reply To This Comment

could you please celebrate the addon instruction a bit more please got it yday proscpected 3 stacks and sold the green raw in ah

Anonymous said... Reply To This Comment

elebrate* not celebrate :p

Unknown said... Reply To This Comment

Smudger is absolutely right about alchemy proc rates. They are all over the board lately, so I'm sure it is almost impossible to accurately calculate them. But the rest of the add-on seems to be fairly accurate. So here's to the author because it is a real time saver!

Ven said... Reply To This Comment

Got this addon yesterday after seeing the post on smudger page, but still haven't tried yet,going to try it today wend i arrive home. And as always good post mate.

Admin said... Reply To This Comment

Anonymous,

By elaborate, do you need to know how to put them to use? The addon is extremely easy to use, once it's in your folder (open wow folder, interface, addon- toss the whole folder in there, thats it) you can click on the link to curse, halfway down the page (a small "install" tab) it shows how to download, where to put it, and how to pull it up.

I just do a /oc in game, and it will pop the window for the program for you.

Not sure if that's the info you were looking for, but holler back if you have any other issues.

Thanks for the comments folks, and truthfully, I am not too bothered with the procs being off, because that (as far as I am concerned) is the only negative, but if you are already expecting it ahead of time, this is a killa-dilla addon. =)

Unknown said... Reply To This Comment

Yea its a great addon i spotted it on the of jan and did a post , nice to see a much more detailed study

Anonymous said... Reply To This Comment

My Orecrusher wont get the prices of things from my auctionator, i dled it and did a scan but OC wont get it. Help?

Anonymous said... Reply To This Comment

I tried doing that, put in the price per stack and amount of stacks and it says in the chat that it could not get prices for all the gems

Anonymous said... Reply To This Comment

My addon keeps erroring, tried uninstalling some other addons, rescanned, restarted the game and it still keeps erroring

Admin said... Reply To This Comment

Two things:

Do you have the 1.6 version? If yes. cool. if not, download that.

Make sure that auctioneer or auctionator is running (it works with TSM too), do a scan, and try again. Please make sure that all the boxes are empty (ore count and cost up top), only the ore that you are trying for filled in. Now hit the DO IT button. Work? Good. Doesn't? Bad. Do this in your "chat":

/run print(OreCrusher_AucLowBuy(52555))

Now write down what it says on your screen (or write down the error message that you already received).

All addons have issues here and there, I wish I could help more, sorry I can't. Now you comment on curse (where you downloaded the file) to the author, he can change the program for the next update (unless he can fix you right there), so not only you, but others with the issue can get help too.

Anonymous said... Reply To This Comment

You do a scan on AH with auctionator if obsidium ore price is 74g80 per stack you type /oc input the value 75g and the amount of stacks you wana buy right? and it gives the whole set of raw gem price and profit / ore cost what after that this :| i got the DE part use the green raw gems to make those ring and DE and Transmute for shadowspirit is there anything else im missing here

Admin said... Reply To This Comment

Nope, you got it. Basically gives you a profit/loss. Hopefully you are in the profit margin...

For example, check my screenie up there. In all reality, on my server, the gold/value of D/Eing isnt much difference, and that's based on 100 stacks. That's another thing to glance at to see if it's worth your time to do that or not. Not a thing, you got the gist of it. You can check the disenchant value box to see a little more in depth on using your enchanter.

Glad to see its working!

Anonymous said... Reply To This Comment

thanks for clearing it im not the guy with problem with the addon :p just thought there were more info available pretty good actually made 2k gold selling enchanting mats from DE

Admin said... Reply To This Comment

Cool. Sorry about that. After you write a comment, you can click in the "Comment As" box, and use a "Name/URL" and toss in a name so it's a bit more formal, it would help me quite a bit when it comes to commenting, that way it's a bit more personalized (and you can use any name in there).

Yeah, it's a real basic addon, and only good for really giving an esimate of sales, and extremely helpful for the folks that haven't utilized "ore crushing" with their prof yet.

Sorry again for the confusion!

Kammler said... Reply To This Comment

Thanks for alerting us about this add-on. I missed Zoxy's post, ((oops!, sorry Zoxy)).

Positives: the proc rates are very accurate. My experience was similar to your test. Very close. The UI is very easy to use--simple interface, easy to read. And the recommended action (DE, Vendor, etc.) is helpful.

Negatives: the lack of manual price adjustments means OreCrusher doesn't achieve a level of functionality that will help me.

The pricing pulls from Auctioneer (or TSM if you have that installed), but the price pulled is the lowest listed price. So if Hypnotic Dust is listed at a low of 9g but the average is 14g the predicted return is 9 x (# of expected dusts). So if I think my profit could be greater if I list at 14g I can't see how much greater or whether this makes the transaction more viable unless I use a spreadsheet or calculator.

Also, the projected number of crafted items is not visible, and neither is the raw gem data except on the main page. For example, the data I just generated for 10 stacks of Obsidium suggests 9.6 Carnelian and 9.6 Jasper. The Transmute button says I should expect 6 Greater Celestials from the Carnelian Spikes (at a rate not disclosed per unit) for a total of 284g, and 2.8 Hypnotic Dusts (again, rate not shown) for 19.60g. Now I know the Carnelian Spikes take 3 gems each so I should produce 3 total. But it isn't shown in the data. It would be helpful to determine "what if" I sold the DE mats from two units at a high enough rate to get that return--then I could bank the extra 3 Carnelians for later.

Similarly, the Jasper Rings show a predicted 10.8 Hypnotic Dusts (total only, 75.6g) and 1.2 Greater Celestials (total only, 56.88g). I know it takes 1 Jasper per ring so that must be based on 9.6 rings. But the totals are not shown so I can't run any other models--its all based on the lowest price listed in the AH.

Finally, the "Add Rare Cut Profit" and "Add Scroll Profit" boxes aren't really explained anywhere. I'm not sure how to use those but the percentage is user defined so I can manipulate that factor.

I went to the Curse page and left a comment for the author. His reply basically said if I wanted manual entry data there were plenty of spreadsheets to do that already.

Well, ok, but if I have to use a spreadsheet why do I need this add-on? The value of the add-on is to eliminate the need to go outside the game to generate this data.

I think for what it does it is fine, but overall, I don't see this being a time saver or gold maker for me. Maybe others will find more use or I'm just a prick but IMO this add-on under-performs compared to its possible uses.

Admin said... Reply To This Comment

Thanks Kammler, that is a great review!

That's too bad that the author basically told you to "fugg off" in a polite (kinda) way, you would think they would be more than happy to try to add code (or whatever it is) to appeal more to the masses.

I for one do like they use the lowest price platform, it makes it more "realtime" profit to get an estimate, but as most of us don't always use the lowest price when we post...

Kammler said... Reply To This Comment

Agreed. I think this add-on has huge POTENTIAL but to be all it can be it needs to allow for some custom pricing input from the user. That's the biggest thing I see lacking at this point. Other minor changes have been or are being addressed (in the comments section on Curse the author gives lots of answers about future changes).

I need to know the profit based on different scenarios. Its not always one flavor--make Carnelian Spikes and DE them for example. I may want to keep the Greater Celestials for scrolls, or sell only a portion of them, or (most likely) craft only a portion of the Spikes and either save or transmute the rest. Same is true for other gems. Having the ability to manipulate different crafting/DE'ing/selling scenarios is very important for me to manage my income stream.

And when dealing in quantities of 50, 75, 100 stacks of ore it is even more important. To me, using a spreadsheet is cumbersome and time consuming. If I'm having to use a spreadsheet for any part of the transaction I might as well use it for all--I have to enter the data again anyway.

Just for the record--for you and your readers--I rely on add-ons a great deal. It is not my style to bash add-ons or their authors. They do something I can't--program code.

I'm not bashing this add-on or its author. I tried it, found some areas where I would like to see it improved, and posted my suggestions on the comments section of the add-on page. The author said what was and was not possible. I simply reported that info to you, per your request on your blog.

Thanks for the shout out.

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