Gold, black lotus, farming, crafting, and blog posting?!

Question here from Taji:

Hey friendly! I have a couple of questions for you that i need answered. You see if you have read my latest blog post, you will see that I am at a standstill in game. I don't have enough gold in game to continue my crafting quests at a very good rate, and I have been having trouble farming for my gear. So here are my questions:

1- Do you know of a good way to get a lot of gold fast?
2- Do you know of a way to get black lotus/black pearls fast (since they are so prominent in the Dragonspyre crafting quests)? Such as a place that has a lot of them or a technique that yields a lot of them?
3- Do you have any tips on farming for stuff, such as ways to make it faster, or make it easier?
4- Do you have tips for crafting overall?
5- And last but not least . . . how do you make so many long blog posts? I find it very hard and I can't seem to do it!
I would be very thankful if you answer these and thank you in advance!
—Taji34

Heya Taji!

Let's see if I can make this a short post!

1- Seven ideas for making gold.

2- Let me cut and paste idea 7 from that last link on making gold here: "Find a route and farm the nodes. For instance, I was in an area in Mooshu today and I was looking for the elusive Black Lotus spawn. I found a good route here that not only had black lotus, but also a couple treasure chests along the way. If you're just up for some running around, you need to find a route that you can run and farm multiple items in exactly one minute. You do this and then immediately jump to another server and run the same route backwards. Wash, rinse, and repeat. Owning a mount is great for doing this. Not only will you beat the walking people to the nodes (not that I condone racing to nodes mind you), but you'll be able to cover more ground and pick up even more nodes along the way."

Honestly, this is a huge wall for most people in crafting. Black lotus and black pearl are horrible to find because everybody needs them. I've yet to find a particular path that is loaded with black pearl/black lotus, but I will say that these maps are pretty accurate (take a look at Tataki Outpost). Those should help you plan out your route in advance.

3- The number one tip I can think of here is use a short deck. The main slowdown in anybody's farming is finding the right cards. If you have too big of a deck, you'll spend a longer time discarding unneeded cards and trying to find what you want. A little preparation in advance will save you tons of time in the long run. Only pack what you need to defeat what you're up against. This is probably the biggest time saver of them all . . . aside from having a pocket storm wizard.

4- Set your eyes on a grand goal. For instance, say, I want to craft a carousel. If you make yourself a goal, then it will increase your ability to persist through the more tedious parts of crafting. AND, plan to reward yourself in someway after you reach the goal. Always plan your goals with rewards at the same time. *friendly's uber tip of the day* Apply this throughout your life. word.

5- I'm not sure. It just kind of happens. I'm hardwired that way. Hopefully my posts aren't too long and tedious to read. The point isn't to be long-winded. No one likes to read long-winded. The point is to care enough about the topic that you do it justice.

Sooooo, I guess my tip here is two fold:

5a- WIDTH--always have a list of things you want to talk about. In question three I said that preparation will save you time . . . it'll also keep your mind full of ideas. Sit down every week and write a list of the things you want to talk about or research. Then each day sit down and type out one of those ideas.

5b DEPTH--find points in your writing where you can expand the topic. Give us something we don't know or maybe haven't thought about. There are usually hidden gems scattered throughout everything that covers a basic topic. Find spots where you can go deeper, and do it. Pictures are awesome for this.

whew . . . question five was the hardest to answer by far, Taji. yikes.

OH!!! 5c--answer questions for people . . . you'll never be short on topics. LOL.

Happy Dueling!