Thursday, April 8, 2010

Show me the money!

When I first started playing World of Warcraft almost 5 years ago I found myself always wanting more. No, I don't mean more time to play, but more gold to spend on uber sweet gear! In my search for knowledge I stumbled upon a post by a guy named Generikb in the official forums that changed my life...er...my virtual life. In the post he gave step by step instructions on how to always keep the coins flowing your way.

I never give anyone money in WoW, but I do dispense this advice freely. I truly believe the age old saying, "Give a man a fish and he'll not be hungry for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll not be hungry for a lifetime." Consider yourself being taught fishing and you will never be without...gold. Here is what I have learned.


1) Get two "gathering" professions (i.e. herbalism, mining or skinning). Try to get skinning with herbalism or mining so that you are not having to constantly swap between mini-map functions to search for minerals or herbs. This point will take some explanation.

As an example: If you were to get skinning with leatherworking your profitability gets crippled. Here is why: Any potential profit that selling the skins would have generated is consumed by creating crafted items with leatherworking which are necessary to level your leatherworking skill points. If you have two gathering skills then you are purely gathering for profit. You are basically acting as a supplier to other crafters that need your ore, herbs, or skins to level their tradeskills.

Don't worry, you can get a "creation" craft soon...keep reading.

2) Invest in bags. Get the biggest bags you can afford. This is a top priority so that you can pick up and sell everything you loot or farm.

3) Pick up everything! Don't leave anything unlooted. Yes, even if it is a gray or white item, pick it up!! Don't be a loot snob.

4) Never sell an item to a vendor unless it is a gray item. EVERY white item in the game can be used in one way or another. Do the research and find out what it is worth. You never know, that white item could be a highly sought after mat for a high end pattern or recipe!

5) Auction House, Auction House, Auction House! Use the Auction House to sell EVERYTHING white, green, blue, purple, etc... Take the time to look up current market prices. If you have a stack of a specific herb, search for it before you list yours and price your stack competitively. Money in your pocket is ALWAYS easier to spend than "potential/hypothetical" money of an item listed on the Auction House.

6) When you reach level 80 (soon to be level 85) drop one of your gathering skills and use your uber-wealth to powerlevel a creation skill. Powerleveling is defined as leveling a skill by purchasing/gathering the necessary mats in a quick manner. The tables have turned and you are now going to rely on others to supply your mats. Consider powerleveling a tradeskill that complements the gathering profession you have decided to keep. For example, if you chose to keep herbalism, powerlevel alchemy.

You can choose to drop one of your gathering professions sooner if you like, but for me I like to keep two gathering skills until I max out my character level. Explore the options and there is no end to how much gold you can make in World of Warcraft!

I started my first horde character back in November and followed the above suggestions. I am now level 68 and have over 3,500 gold on that toon. That is with NO character transfer to bring money over and making my primary focus leveling. All I have done is pick up everything I can and selling it on the Auction House. That's it. Simple and rewarding.

Now go pick some flowers!!

- Alan

1 comment:

  1. i find powerleveling professions to be counter-productive. unless you can farm the gold necessary to buy the mats off the auction house faster than you can farm the item itself, you're just being lazy. ;-P

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