- Intro
- Three Sources of Gold
- Piles of Stuff
- The Baker's Dozen Tips
- Is A Millon Gold even Possible?
Introduction
Ok, you've got 6 figures in your gold account, you're decked head to toe in epics dropped off the Auction house, or bought through contracted guild raids, and you have every pet and every mount. You don't need a gold guide, you should be writing one. Now go away and get to work.
This guide is for the other guy/gal who has problems scraping up enough to meet expenses or who would like to buy that epic mount at level 60 (or the epic flyer at 70.) While I do recommend a couple of gold guides (they cover different areas) those are only for people who are serious about playing the gold game. Want to make 100k gold? Get a guide. Just want to make enough to meet expenses, get your mounts, and some decent gear? This guide will be enough.
The Three Sources of Gold Aquisition
Basically there are three ways to get gold in the World of Warcraft (and pretty much any other video game or MMO) and that's to complete quests (and kill mobs,) sell stuff to the vendor, or sell stuff to other players. While there are a few other bits where you can grab some cash (such as chests) those three areas cover 99% of the gold accumulation that you will ever do.
Some of the items that you will (or could be) gathering or creating are:
- Mats for enchanters through disenchanting of items
- Finding materials for cooking
- Farming more exotic items for crafters, such as motes, crystallized this and that, and so on.
- Vanity items, such as clothing
- skins, ores, herbs for the crafters - Alchemists, Scribes, Blacksmiths, Leatherworkers, etc.
Piles o' Stuff Vs One-Offs
One of the things that effects the price you can ask for an item is how people actually buy that item.
Things like ores, skins, rep items, herbs, etc tend to sell in stacks and will have repeat
customers. Things like crafted items don't sell in stacks (even if they're stackable, like
Glyphs) and repeat customers, for the same item, are rare.
This becomes important when you're
posting your items on the Auction House (AH.) A scribe or Leatherworker might pick up a
dozen (or more) stacks of raw marerials at one time, and come back for more later, so even
if you don't have the lowest price your items will sell (assumiung you're not crazy high
with the price.)
Any given character will only buy one each of any given crafted item. So when putting these
items up for sale there's more incentive to have the lowest price on that item. This is why
you will see all the glyphs sellers constantly undercutting each other. As a seller of materials
you don't have to play the undercutting game.
Ok, Let's Get Started with the Tips
- Roll yourself a dedicated Auction House Banker.
Everytime you stop by town to lighten your bags you can mail te worthwhile stuff to your
banker and then get back to work.
- Buy the biggest bags you can afford, eventually working up to those
20 slot Frostweave Bags. Do the same for your banker. This will minimize your
trips to town to unload stuff and maximize your collecting time.
- Loot everything, always. Vendor the gray stuff and send all the white
(and better) stuff to your banker. If you're high enough level you can solo instances,
looting everything, and make a nice pile of gold selling the grey titled stuff to the vendor
and the better stuff on the AH. You might even find some nice blue (and maybe even purple)
items that you can sell for a high price.
- White items sometimes sell at a surpisingly high price. Always check
out the current prices on the AH on these items. For example, the Farmer's Broom and Farmer's
Shovel are low level white weapons that are good for low level PvP and they sell
for several gold each. I remember being quite surprised at the price that the "large
fang"
sold for.
- Grinding and Questng: If you're going to grind mobs in some area see
if you can pick up the appropriate kill quest(s) or quests that are in the same area. You'll
get the cash
reward and occasional items when completing the quest.
- Any of the gathering skills (mining, skinning, herbalism) will keep
you in the gold if you work them. Try and keep them maxed at all times and never pass up
a node, plant, or skinning chance. We recommend Skinning and either Herbalism
or Mining. Why? You won't have to constantly fiddile with your mini-map setting to alternate
between looking for ores or herbs.
If you're a skinner then skin everyting
you can, always. Sometimes other players will kill skinnable mobs and leave them there.
Skin 'em yourself. Sell the scraps, too.
- Cloth always sells, though you should check prices. One day they'll
suck, a few days later they'll be better. Also consider stashing the cloth to level up
your first aid and that of your alts. Some types of cloth can also be turned in for rep
rewards. As you know, the cloth type dropped is dependant on the mob level. Hit 25ish (humanoid)
mobs for Wool
Cloth,
for example.
- Some green items will sell very nicely, others just don't. Who wants
a 2 hand sword with a Spirit buff, after all? You should disenchant green
and better items that don't sell and then sell the parts. If you have a stack of green
items and don't have Enchanting then you might be able to sell them to an enchanter
so that she can disenchant them. You can also work your banker up to level 10 and get Journeyman
Enchanting. That will allow you to disenchant things for awhile.
- Daily Quests: Starting at 70 you can do the various daily quests. These
pay gold, of course, and sometimes rep and various items. If you are grinding rep with
certain factions you will want to look into these.
The trick is to grab several of these quests that are in the same area or easily follow
one into the other, otherwise you spend too much time traveling. The Isle of Quel'Danis quests
are perfect for this. You can do the 10 quests in about an hour (once you have the routine
down) make a nice pile of gold, get rep, and get a stack of stuff to sell to the vendor
and AH. Unlike some other daily quests you don't need a flying mount to do these. The
level 80 quests are similar and there's even a Daily
Quest Guide that will make
things easier.
- Pricing: Remember, with cloth and the stacks of stuff you gather (including
enchanting materials) you do not have to have the lowest price. Peolpe
buy piles of this stuff and come back for more, so don't shoot yourself in the foot by
pricing it too low. Heck, if some good puts up a few stacks at a way low price just buy
them all and repost them at the right price.
- Addons: If you're a miner or herbalist you should grab the
Cartographer and
Gatherer addons along with the
WoWhead database that comes with Gatherer. This will give you a map of the common locations where
ores and herbs appear and will make your gathering faster.
- An addon like Auctioneer (free)
is really valuable, though some recommend WoWecon (not
free) or other addons. The idea is that it will give you pricing info so that you can price
your items correctly when you post them on the AH. With this info you will know if the
current listings are too low (and you should wait) or too high (post now.)
Next up - The Grind (no, not the music group...)
Is a Million Gold Even Possible?
Yes, but ...
First, keep in mind that there's a gold cap of about 214,000 gold, so that million will
be spread over several characters. With that in mind...
Basically you have to play the gold game a bit like the top PvPers and Raiders do. You have
to work at it, master a few techniques, really understand how things work, and so on. You
won't do it a month, or even several months. Even if you're making 5,000 gold profit a
day it's going to take 200 days and that's assumuing you're not spending it elsewhere.
A few hundred a day will meet pretty much everyone's needs and that amount is within the
reach of just about anyone willing to put in a bit of effort. Still, it's nice to think about
the big gold pile, isn't it? Spend 2 grand on a Harris Pilton bag? Shrug. 10k on
an item or 20k on a mount? No sweat. Fund all your guild raids? Petty cash.
If you want to know how a real WoW Millionaire did it, then check
out his guide, here. |
