How to find farmers and how to communicate with them

Hey guys, this guide is dedicated to those players who have specific items that they routinely craft with professions to sell on the Auction House, and often craft those items in bulk.



There is nothing better than having a personal farmer or two which you can always rely on to provide you daily materials at very reasonable prices.

Part 1: How to find material farmers:

Pretty much every single server will have at least 5-6 farmers per faction, most servers having more. However the trick is actually finding those people.

When ever I am in the city or on my bank alt I check trade chat for good deals and farmers selling their wares. You just need to look for players who tend to sell a LOT of items. If you watch chat each day often you can pick up the same sellers selling the same things every few days. That is a good indication that they are a farmer. Also if you find someone selling farm able items for very good prices, you could ask them if they would like to farm the items specifically for you and you will buy them each time for that price.

On my bank alt I have Trade is for trade! addon enabled which allows me to filter out all the crap. On most servers the LFM / LFG spam has loooong over taken the WTB / WTS. So you can use Trade is for trade! addon to filter out all sentences that begin with LFM / LFG etc

The next addon that is a HUGE goldmine is TB_ChatEnhancements . What this handy addon does is it highlights keywords and phrases in trade chat that may be of interest for you. So if you are looking for a farmer for Saronite Ore, just add the phrase Saronite Ore to the list and each time someone mentions it in chat, that keyword/phrase is highlighted.

http://media.curse.com/Curse.Projects.ProjectImages/18338/14221/TB_Chat_Enhancements.png

http://www.wowconfidential.com/wp-co...-highlight.jpg


The easiest way of course is to search the Auction House for your desired items. If you then see a large amount of the same items all listed together by the same seller, there is a good chance they enjoy farming those items in bulk, or possibly have many more of it to sell.

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/3938/arcticfur.jpg

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/1637/stongue.jpg
Part 2: How to communicate to farmers:

I think it is safe to say without sounding too racist (because I most definitely am not) that the majority of farmers are Chinese or Asian, simply because they have a better attention span than most and can actually manage to concentrate to farm over a considerable length of time. Therefore you need to be very careful how you approach them.
Say too much and you scare them away / confuse them, speak to little and you offend them or they think you are an idiot.

If possible, ALWAYS choose to speak to your farmers via Whisper to reduce any confusion or language barrier errors. If you notice a farmer or a possible farmer add them to friends and talk to them when they are online and not busy.

Always first approach them in English, but keep it very simple, almost like keyword or summary form. In otherwords a form of shorthand only using very basic words that if they are foreign, they will probably know.

Keep your sentences short and to the point, be friendly but do not bother with small talk. You will only piss them off / confuse them / loose their interest.

"Hello, me/I WTB [Item Link] for [Price] each."
"Hello. You sell [Item Link]? Me/I WTB [Item Link] for [Price] each."

Your next option is to send them an in-game mail. Often after I have talked to a farmer I send him an in-game mail AS WELL just to remind him and confirm with him what I want. It shows enthusiasm and dedication from my part making him more likely to farm for me before someone else.

Keep your mail messages something like this: (if this is a follow up mail after talking to him in-game, introduce yourself again and remind him that you spoke with him earlier too).

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/765/mailuo.jpg


Part 3: Worst case scenario - they don't understand you:

I mentioned to my friend that I was writing another quick guide for MMOverload and when I told him the topic he gave me a link to this post with the following english:chinese translation table to help you communicate to your farmer if you get stuck at the language barrier and lost in translation.

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/9060/translation1.jpg

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/7622/translation2e.jpg
Hope this helped y'all, peace.