Tweet
I connected the headset a few days ago for a Skype interview with Elvine, who was also streaming live. This was a real treat for me, as I have followed Elvine for abit, and have always found his methods very instructional and personable. For those of you who do not know, Elvine is an auction house guru with the Lzuruha team on the Stormreaver server. He also streams his adventures on his Twitch TV channel, which currently has over 768,000 views and 10,250 followers. He enjoys helping his fellow WoW players and giving back to the community, both on WoW and in real life through the Child’s Play Charity.
Talamandas:
First and foremost, how many cats do you have?
Elvine:
Two. I just actually adopted a new one. I first adopted Bibble about a month and two weeks ago. Then I adopted a second one, Heart, from the same pet-adoption program.
Talamandas:
Ah, okay. So, Heart and Bibble. I was just wondering because I had joined your stream a few times and would hear kissing noises. Wondering ‘What the hell?’ to myself, I’d switch over and see you with the cat.
Elvine:
Something else, you might be a little worried…
Talamandas:
Right! Before switching to look at the channel, I’d think ‘Is he making out on stream?’ But, it is Valentine’s Day, so you never know…
Elvine:
Don’t judge me.
Talamandas:
Hey, no judging. We’re all here on Valentine’s Day anyways.
Elvine:
Don’t remind us...
Talamandas:
True! So, how’d you get started in the gold-making business?
Elvine:
I started about a year and a month ago. I came back to WoW after taking a break from hardcore raiding. I was previously top 50 US and left after Firelands. Coming back in the middle of Dragon Soul, I was down to 50k gold. I blew 20k to catch back up in gear, and was low on gold. So I searched a way to make gold, and came across Keelhaul, known as the unofficial Mogfather, because he predicted the whole mogging market demand. He made a list of items that I have since edited and changed pricing on. I picked up one piece and put it on the auction house, and made 4000g off of a 50g flip. I’ve been doing that ever since.
Talamandas:
The majority of the time I see you on your stream, you’re at the auction house. But I’ve also seen you running a 5-man challenge mode. So, it’s good to see you actually playing parts of the game because I’ve been in your channel a few times and seen people criticizing you above ‘PVP this or PVE that’.
Elvine:
Well, it’s sad because players think that WoW is only PVP or PVE, and that’s it, nothing else. People forget that there’s RP and other things in the game that qualify you as playing the game. You’re logged in, so no matter what you’re doing, when you’re logged in, you’re playing the game. But too many players are like “Oh, do you actually play the game? Do you PVP or PVE?”
Talamandas:
Well, I was going to bring that up later. That’s a major thing I’ve seen on your channel. I’ve actually had a guildie who was streaming a run today. She’s new to streaming, and ran across a couple of immature people that came into her stream and started talking smack, and it upset her. So how do you deal with that sort of thing all the time?
Elvine:
Oh, okay. Well, you have to have a thick skin. I’ll be honest with you, live streaming is hard. Not as easy as people think. When you have a webcam and mic, you’re putting yourself out there for criticism. You’re handing yourself on a silver platter to your viewers. Though, you do have power in your channel over chat, so you can ban people if you want to.
Talamandas:
What type of advice do you have for a brand new streamer?
Elvine:
First off, it’s very hard to get started in streaming since so many people do it already, since so many people do it already. You have people with from 2 to 7,000 viewers. So what’s the difference between those types of streamers? Are they just that bad? No, it’s just exposure. Interaction with your viewers is important. Many neglect their viewers and forget that you need to interact with them. Try to provide unique content. As you can see when you open the twitch wow page, it’s 80% PVP streams. So, if you’re going to do a PVP stream, you better be one hell of a PVPer or have some criteria or resume or something to back it up to give people a reason to come watch you instead of other people streaming PVP.
Talamandas:
Going back to what you said earlier, you are putting yourself out there. So, if you’re not great, you are putting yourself out there. You hafta hope that either you get great or hope that, well, people don’t criticize you as much. Well, that’s good to know. I know that streaming is getting bigger and bigger. I remember watching in the beginning to first person shooters and league of legends and such, but it’s taken off really, even on WoW.
Elvine:
Another thing I’ll say is, have good music for people to listen to. Silence is bad. If you’re not talking, well, unless you talk 24/7, and you lose your voice, and can only stream once a week because you’re trying to get your voice back, well… I do that anyways, but I talk constantly with my viewers.
Talamandas:
I do like that and see that’s a huge help to your viewers to see and know that you do help them. Which brings me to another topic: Helping out. I see how people will come in and ask questions, and I have noticed that you help as much as possible. But I also notice from your stream and on the forums that you’re known for giving back and make time to help others out. Is that your primary focus, to help others get on the level you’re on?
Elvine:
As you can see, I would want to say I’m different from a lot of streamers as I do help as much as possible. I like to help one-on-one in a public setting, in the stream. I try to answer every single thing asked in chat, no matter how many viewers are in there. That’s pretty much it. I don’t charge anything, everything’s free.
Talamandas:
So, you’ve made 8 million gold since a year and a month?
Elvine:
Well, about 11 months due to vacations and such.
Talamandas:
That’s just amazing. I’m sure everyone wished they had 8 million gold just to buy things. So, what do you do with 8 million gold?
Elvine:
Well, I’m sure you’ve seen my channel that I don’t have 8 million gold liquid. I only have 1.3 million liquid*. I invested most of my gold before MoP in TCG mounts. What happened was that about a month before MoP came out, there were a bunch of level 1s selling cheap TCG mounts. Many said that they were dupe mounts and what happened to them and why aren’t they being sold still? And, my assumption is that a lot of the Chinese gold farmers overseas (Yes, props to my relatives) were dumping their loot for liquid gold to sale because a new expansion was coming out. New players coming to the expansion pack want gold, not TCG mounts.
Talamandas:
So, you bought a lot of these mounts?
Elvine:
I can pull up an old screenshot on my Facebook, but I got up to 22-23 TCG mounts at one point. I invested about 4 or 5 million gold in TCG mounts. But the TCG market hasn’t recovered from that, and prices are too low to make sense. MoP has so many gold sinks. I mean, you can make more money, but you also spend more. Something like the Spectral Tiger mount should be going for much more than it’s currently advertised for. But maybe people just need gold now? I don’t know. But I have spent a couple hundred thousand on the black market auction house on my tier 3 pieces and some TCGs.
Talamandas:
Well, it’s good to see that you’re having fun with your money.
Elvine:
Oh, definitely. If I wanted to take my mounts off the auction house, I could know every mount and pet in the game right now, though. Another thing I will add, however, is that I made my first million with no professions. I did it to prove that you could make gold cap with no professions, and made it solely by flipping on the auction house in about 78 days. Since a lot of people think that you have to use professions to make gold.
Talamandas:
Okay, so what are the most common questions that you get?
Elvine:
Well, UI. I don’t know why, but everyone wants to know about my UI. It’s a slightly modified version of LUI, and other streamers use it too. I finally uploaded my LUA file so people could download and make it exactly like mine. Uhm, I haven’t finished an FAQ yet, but a lot of people ask generic questions. What’s the best money-making profession? This is server dependent. Why do you cover one-fourth of your stream with a big fat fucking bar or whatever? What a lot of people don’t realize is that it’s a Viewport. I see more than a typical player because it’s a 16:9 ratio. Uh, what’s my auction house addon? What’s my mailbox addon? How much do I make a day? About 20,000 a day over the last 7 months.
Talamandas:
So, tell me about your charity work.
Elvine:
Well, I give back a lot. In the past year, I’ve done 3 charities for Child’s Play and raised over $5000 for that. Those are 24-hour streams. I’ve given away items within my stream as well. From TCG loot cards to pets to store mounts to store pets, steam games. On top of giving free gold tips and providing a website as well, I do show appreciation towards my viewers. Even though I don’t need to, obviously, as they’re getting free gold tips!
Talamandas:
Okay, could you explain a little bit more about these 24-hour charities?
Elvine:
Sure. 3 times last year, we streamed for 24 hours playing different games, doing viewer runs and whatnot, raising money for Child’s Play**. Which is a charity for helping kids in the hospital with giving them games to play just to get their mind off of their health and trying to bring them out of the atmosphere of being in the hospital. I think it’s one of the better charities that gamers can do because they are gamers for other kids that would be gamers as well. It’s probably one of the least-supported I’ve seen. They only made I think 5 million dollars last year, which is really low for a charity. We stream and ask for donations from players basically.
Talamandas:
Which is a shame. And I’ve never heard of any charity like that before.
Elvine:
Exactly. Well, it’s just trying to get rid of that stigma that gamers.. don’t care. That they’re selfish, don’t care, they don’t give back and are all about themselves. And it’s a stigma that shouldn’t be there. You know how like gaming is not a real sport. And that’s slowly being taken away by e-sports.
Talamandas:
I agree 100%, and I think that as e-sports broaden and as more services like Twitch TV take off, more and more people become aware of it. I wasn’t aware of twitch until a short time ago when I ran across it. I think e-sports are taking a huge leap. And the one that’s come up the most in my mind has been league of legends.
Elvine:
Oh yes. I remember when league of legends first came out, it was a pay to play, and I remember seeing the box at GameStop. I was playing HoN when it came out. I was like “Oh, league of legends looks so cartoony, I don’t like the camera angles, and you can’t deny creep…” Next thing I know, it was hugely embraced by the community, and is much larger than HONE now.
Talamandas:
I actually loved DOTA from Warcraft, and that’s what got me into LoL. I’m not very great at it, so I’ll hafta ask our Lzuruha team, but I love playing it because of the diversity of things to do. So when I heard that e-sports was doing tournaments, I immediately tuned in and started watching. And I think that from the past few seasons of tournaments, they’re just going to start getting bigger and introduce more people to the games that we’ve been playing for forever.
Elvine:
It’s perfect for late teens and early 20’s – I’m 26 if you didn’t know – but it’s perfect for them, prime time for late teens. We’re striving at the end of our life of gaming, and we’re just you know peaking.
Talamandas:
Boy, I hope not. I think that as younger people get introduced to the competitive side of gaming, not just, you know, your relatives overseas just destroying the markets –
Elvine:
The national sport!
Talamandas:
Exactly, exactly. And, now I’m definitely not going to play this clip now. Okay, so, Lzuruha. That’s obviously who I’m affiliated with in this interview. What got you interested in them?
Elvine:
Well, it’s actually funny how we met. I was on Stormreaver, and Sliverfoul was one of my viewers. One day I was grinding for rep for the Insane and was looking for a guild because I wanted the extra rep bonus from Mr. Popularity. From there, Jarrod or his girlfriend noticed me and started coming by my stream, and it just blossomed from there and got me partnership with Twitch, and them supporting me and me supporting their sponsors. It was mutually beneficial for all of us.
Talamandas:
As far as your goals with the stream, we covered giving back and gold-making and working the auction house…
Elvine:
I just enjoy helping people. I don’t ask for much in return except for support. I love success stories. I’m pretty sure I’ve helped my viewers make a total of over 100 million gold. I haven’t been keeping a tally, but I know there are a few of my viewers that have made a couple million themselves after following me.
Talamandas:
Well, I think that’s about it. Is there anything that you have for anybody who’ll be reading this? Shout outs seem really popular for some reason.
Elvine:
Yes, to all of my viewers, new and old, for all of their support, coming back to the stream. All my donators who helped with donations and paying for my website. All donations go back to the stream or to the community that I’m trying to build. Thank you Lzuruha for their partnership and their business. They’re a great community. And to our sponsors.
Talamandas:
Alright, well I’ll leave you and Bibble and Heart to pounding away at the auction house. Thanks again!
www.elvinelol.com | www.twitch.tv/elvinemod | www.twitter.com/elvinelol | www.facebook.com/elvinelol | www.youtube.com/elvinelol
* Liquid gold refers to actual gold, and not what you have invested in other products. If you have 50g actual gold, and 150g’s worth of saronite bars, you are worth 200g, but your liquid gold is only 100g. When you “liquidate” your bars, you are turning your investments into liquid gold.
** For those of you that want to know more, Child’s Play Charity is a completely non-profit gaming industry charity dedicated to improving the lives of children with toys and games in a network of over 70 hospitals world-wide. They rely solely on donations. For more information, check out www.childsplaycharity.com.
