Nov 152008
 

Wrath of the Lich king has landed and the World of Warcraft has changed. There are new talents, new builds, new gear, new areas to explore, and so on, but one of the areas that hasn’t changed much is in the gold making techniques.

Gathering is unchanged, except for discovering the new things to gather. Demand for green drops from mobs will probably be strong for awhile since much of it is better than the epic stuff people had at level 70. Certain crafted items (especially glyphs) will sell very well and the materials to make the popular enchants and crafted items will sell very well. The only real difference here will be in exactly which crafts and enchants are popular.

So here are my guesses for gold earning in Wrath. Keep in mind that prices will drop as more and more people start farming Northrend.

Skinning – As always, skin everything you can. Sell the scraps, too. Keep an eye on the Auction House for which skins sell best and which hot crafting recipes require those skins. Find areas where people are just grinding away for XP and skin everything they kill.

Mining – Cobalt and Titanium await you. Engineering, Blacksmithing, and Jewelcrafting will create a demand for these ores and that demand should stay strong for a long time. Cobalt look like it’s going for almost 50g for a 5 stack at the moment, on Bloodscalp. Mining should be interesting on the PvP servers…

Herbalism – Now that Wrath of the Lich King is here people will get back to raiding, which will require the usual collection of potions, created from the various herbs that you will be picking. Plus there’s Inscription, which has driven the price of herbs way up, since the inscription ink come from herbs.

Right now the prices for Northred herbs are truly grim, 20-40 gold per herb. With much of the playerbase arriving in Northrend, gathering away, I don’t think Northrend herbs will stay at that price for long, which is great for scribes, but less great for herbalists. With herbs at 20 gold a stack it costs about 4 or 8 gold to make one glyph. With herbs at 300 gold a stack…

Outland herbs, which have been cheap for some time now, might go up as the gatherers head to Northrend. If Northrend herbs are selling at 100 gold a stack, right now, how many stacks can you farm? As always, check prices on the Auction House first.

Fishing and cooking – Some fish will likely be needed for Alchemy, as well as for cooking, and some might turn out to do interesting things (such as Savory Deviate Delight.) Of course, certain foods are in demand for the buffs they provide and those foods should sell well.

Looting – As usual, keep a close eye on any white or better items you loot in your day to day monster mashing. Some of these items will be valuable. Send them to your banker to sell, don’t vendor them.

Limited items – I have no doubt that there will be a number of new “limited items” appearing on various vendors. Keep an eye on these as several might sell for a very nice profit on the Auction House. Make your own list of “limited item” vendors as you travel the new lands.

Speaking of the Auction House… This really is the area where people can make some serious gold. There are two basic ideas here, both of which require a good understanding of the market on your server.

  1. buy low and sell high is a tried and true one. Herbs for example. If an herb (or ore, or…) normally goes for 30gold a stack and you see that someone has dumped a bunch of stacks for 5 gold, buy them up and resell them (or send them to your favorite scribe.) If prices are starting to look depressed then just hold those items for a few days and keep a close eye on the AH. Post them at a higher price when the market allows.
  2. Find holes in the market and fill them. If a certain glyph is rare and selling for a high price then see if you can make a few of that glyph and sell them for that high price. Same with herbs. If the market needs a few more of a certain herb, because prices are so high, go out and farm a few.

Your banker: Lastly, consider using a low level alt to do all of your buying and selling. It’s less distracting than if you use your main character, plus you’ll be able to focus on making gold and not spending it on better stuff.

Just make a level 1 character to be your “Banker” and run to the nearest big city and park in the Auction House. Next have your main character mail your banker some starting money (for auction fees.) Then as your other characters collect sellable loot and limited items they mail all of those items to the banker for resale.

There are a lot of ways to make gold in the World of Warcraft and the above suggestions are only a few of them. To learn many more gold making techniques you should consider taking the advice of someone who has made enough WoW gold to hit the gold cap (over 230,000 gold) on each of four separate characters. He’s the Warcraft Millionaire and, as you can see, he knows what he’s talking about.

Oct 212008
 

Update 5/26/11: The WM product hasn’t been updated in awhile, so while it has some pretty useful stuff it has nothing for Cataclysm. The product that I’m currently using is the Tycoon gold addon. It does the farming/gathering/crafting stuff, like the other guide, but does it all in-game in the form of an addon. Wrap that around your Gnomish brain. The creators have also released an Auction House module, which looks pretty slick and will make some of us a pile of gold. If that seems like it’s for you then hit that banner to the right or see my Tycoon Gold Guide Review.

By the war, the Massive WoW Gold product mentioned in the comments is very good and is regularly updated for new Cata content. Tycoon is my toy of choice for the moment, though.

Warcraft Millionaire

Here’s the usual gold drill: Grind a few primals (or other items,) sell them off, and make upwards of a couple hundred gold an hour if you’re really good at it and there’s no competition. It’s about the same for the daily quests, plus you get the rep items. If you’re good at playing Auction House games you can double that.

Now consider for a moment what it takes to hit the gold cap: that limit being currently set at 214,748 gold, 36 silver, 48 copper, and once reached will prevent you from receiving any more cash. At 300 gold an hour that’s a measly 716 hours of pure gold making activity.

Brad, of Warcraft Millionaire, has hit that cap on four separate characters. I’d say he know his stuff and I’d say it took some time.

How was it that this guy had managed to do what is seemingly impossible when millions of other players have been at it for just as long and are nowhere close? You can see the video proof on his home page, which really drives the point home.

So how did he do it?

What has Brad done that very few, if any, have done before? What did see in the game that others had missed? His strategy must surely be superior, right?

It seems that Brad’s friends and fellow players have been asking the same question of him for some time and so, instead of constantly answering questions, he has put together a collection of resources at his website that promises to guide the casual or even hardcore player through the same process he used to reach the upper echelons of gold making.

The truth of the matter

is that it’s not some special secret, as you might think. The “secret”  is entirely in his understanding of how the WoW market works.  It’s all in the Auction House (AH.)

We all know that; we’ve been to the Auction House and we’ve seen what kind of gold it can provide, someone’s putting up all that stuff for sale, but none of us would have guessed that there was quite that much gold in it.

Want to learn how to do that, too?  Brad provides concise, well written advice on how to use the Auction House to make a lot of gold. I think that hitting the gold cap, four times, provides some serious credibility, don’t you?

While I won’t reach a million gold anytime soon, I definitely feel much more confident in my ability to make hundreds of gold on demand and pretty much all of it it with my low level bank alts. I’ve accumulated a nice little stash since Wrath went live:

A nice gold stash

A nice gold stash, taken on 3/18/09

Not Just the AH

Now, while the real gold is made at the auction house, and Brad emphasizes learning to use the AH, there are people who would, for whatever reason, rather do something else to earn their WoW cash. So, I’ll open up my copy of Warcraft Millionaire and note that, in addition to the Auction House domination guide, Brad includes the following:

  • All of the Daily Quests – listed, rated (1 to 5 stars,) with notes on the gold and the rep that you will earn, and linked to WoWdb.com for more info. Of course, you do need to be level 70+ to do these. All of the daily quest from Wrath of the Lich King, including the PvP quests, are also part of the list.
  • The Grinding Guide – Want to just mindlessly kill hordes of mobs and fill your bags with goodies? This is the guide for you. It includes where to find certain special items, grinding instances, various locations, and recommended addons to make you grinding easier (besides plugging a case of Mountain Dew into your brain.) Locations and infor are provided for all levels, 1-80. Brad hates the grind, I hate the grind, but if you’re Ok with it then this guide is for you.
  • A limited items listing – This is a big list of vendors who sell all sorts of limited items. General locations of the vendors are provided, but it would have been nice to see exact locations. For items found in Azeroth the list is sorted by specific item, who sells it, and how much you’ll pay. How much you can sell it for will depend on the economy of your particular server. The Outlands and Northrend listings list vendors by zone, plus the items they sell and the cost. Make a loop of these vendors, grab the items that are available as you hit them, ship them to your banker, and sell for a very nice profit.
  • 1-60,  60-70, and 71-80 gold guides – As you level you should keep an eye peeled for certain items and these two guides cover those items. You can make a lot of gold in the leveling process (beyond taking Herbalism and/or Mining) and these guides will show you what to look for. Naturally the best stuff requires higher level characters.
  • A special bonus, is the Warcraft Basics Guide, which covers the basics of the WoW economy, principles, gold making, questing, professions, etc. New players will find this guide to be very useful, experienced players can skim much of it, but will find some useful tips as well.

All Up to Date, Including WotLK

Since Millionaire is one of the newest gold guides it neatly cuts out one of the problems of the older guides, none of the info is out of date. You won’t find references to the level 60 cap or to items and mobs that are no longer in game or of value. It’s also updated for Wrath.

Note: There’s no mention, yet, on his homepage whether the guide will be updated for Cataclysm. I don’t think the techniques will change much, though the “places to find stuff” lists will probably change, big time. As of this writing there’s a lot of time for you to build your stash before the expansion hits.

You don’t have to have level 80 characters, either. In the video on the home page Brad notes that his level 1 bank alt does most of his trading, buying, and selling. Yes, it’s at the gold cap. You will also get an idea of what he buys and sells.

If you like to make all your gold by some form of farming, then having the high level characters certainly helps.

You won’t just be given a set of grinding locations either, though you do get those in addition to everything else. What you will get and learn is a set of techniques that will massively boost your gold stash.

Whether you are just starting or have conquered Northrend you’ll find something in here that fits what you want to do.

Just One Thing…

There is one section lacking:

While Brad includes a ton of stuff that will do wonderful things for your gold stash, he basically skips Inscription. That profession is what I used to make the bulk of the stash in the image above. Not a major oversight, though. Scan glyph prices (especially with the new dual talent builds) and use what you learn from the AH section of the guide and you’ll figure it out quickly.

You can snag your copy of Warcraft Millionaire here.

Update 8/8/2010:

I tweaked some of the info above, but my opinions haven’t changed, and I hit almost 250k on the above account (over a couple of characters. ) WM is a good guide that covers a lot of areas for making a lot more gold. I assume that the author will keep updating it, otherwise a lot of info will become dated with the Cataclysm release. It has been updated since the above review was written.

Also, keep in mind that hitting the cap is going to take some work. It’s one thing if you want to have 10-20k gold in your pouch, it’s another to have 200k+ (and it’s really nice being able to drop 10k on an item without even blinking.)

So this guide is really good for the person who wants to play the gold game, though the casual player will also make a lot more than otherwise.

Take a look at Warcraft Millionaire here.