World of Warcraft: How to Avoid Having Your Character Banned & Deleted Pt. III

If you haven't read the previous two articles I wrote, "The First 20 Levels" & "Making Gold the Crafty Way" I respectfully ask that you do so. Here are the links:

Who knows, you might find something you hadn't thought about, even if you are a higher level character.

Speaking of higher level characters, like any other game WOW increases in difficulty as the game and levels progress. So while my previous articles were designed to help the lower level character, this article speaks more to the characters which are levels 40 +. At this point, you've found a groove and a character which you are into and want to sustain it. Those repair costs are hitting you pretty hard in the pocket-book and that flying mount is looming up ahead. The costs of which, are to say the least, pure insanity! Hopefully you've managed to build up something of a nest-egg with the previous tips I've provided and I have good news for you, now. If you've built your character up you're more capable of making money at these levels than ever before.

Farming for Loot & Gear

Wait a second, Nicole, didn't you just tell us that farming was bad? That it messes up the WOW economy? That's not the kind of farming I'm talking about here, though. When you receive loot from a mob you've killed it'd be of a few different varieties. Anything that is green, blue, or purple will generally go for a good price at the AH. When we talk about farming for loot and gear we are not talking about gold farming for public profit. To farm for loot and gear what you have to do is run the same set of mobs, bosses or instances in the chance of getting a good drop to sell at the AH. This is more difficult than previous methods discussed in that the rate for these good drops can be as low as .03% so if you manage to get one: Sell high! You'll be able to run through lower level mobs / instances more quickly and more often in one session so sometimes it's better to go for the lower level items when it comes to making more gold, you'll be able to get more drops this way.

The Auction House

When you receive loot from a mob you've killed it'd be of a few different varieties. Anything that is green, blue, or purple will generally go for a good price at the AH. Like I said, always sell these items at the auction house. If you don't know what it is worth, look at items similar to it and price your item accordingly. If you still don't know, put it up for some absurd amount, there is always the chance that someone will pay it. Green, blue and purple items can always be sold at the auction house. If it doesn't sell the first time you put it up, put it up again. You always want to put items up on the weekend and for the longest amount of time that is possible.

The Bank

Which brings us to the bank. No, you can't hold up the bank for money or gold, but there is a way to utilize your bank account in WOW to make gold. When you get “the good drops,” their title will be in green, blue or purple. Save these items in your bank account, and sell them at the AH only on the weekend: Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Generally speaking there are three times as many people playing WOW on the weekend as there is during the week. You might want to shell out the extra bucks for at least a couple of bag slots at the bank as well, they pay for themselves with all the extra gear you'll be able to store for weekend selling.

Buying Low, Selling High

Sometimes people sell the same item as you're putting up for an insanely low price. It's always best to buy these items out yourself and resell them. Again, having a bank account on WOW will be helpful in doing this. It seems unfair, but if you don't buy it someone else definitely will. After you've bought it out, wait a little while and put your own item up for auction at a more reasonable price. Once it's sold, put the other up for the same price or more if it seemed to sell rather quickly. Another way to employ the buying low and selling high method is to watch the trade channel. People who don't want to wait for an item to go through auction house will often advertise and sell items for much less than you could get at the AH so keep your eyes open for characters yelling: WTS, (want to sell,) x item. Message them with a very low ball figure for the item, negotiate to a more acceptable one for both parties, (make sure you're not paying more than it will sell for on the AH during the weekend,) and you will make a profit off their impatience.

Controlling the Market

This is a lot more difficult than other ways to make gold and you will need gold to start with so it is usually only employed by higher level characters. In order to explain how it works I'm going to use heavy copper rings as an example. Let us say you have done a search on heavy copper rings and you see that they are selling around 40 silver a piece. You'd like to make at least 60 silver a piece on your heavy copper rings, though. What do you do? You buy all, yes, all the copper rings for sell for a given amount of time then post your rings for a starting bid of 40 and an ending “buy out” bid of 60. Continue to run the market every time someone puts out a heavy copper ring at anything less than sixty silver. Eventually you'll have set the price and people will not try selling them for less than 60 silver. Mind you this method is scummy. People will not like you for doing this and within a month you'll have to move on to another market in order to make any money doing it. It's best not to do this with your main character, use a mule instead. This is basically creating a monopoly. One way to beat another character who seems to be doing this is to sell your item for more, not less. Eventually in a market atmosphere enough people will start selling their items for too outrageous of a price and the market will collapse returning the prices back to normal again.

Mules

Ah, the mule character. Where would we be without you? Let me explain. Mules are characters that solely exist for three reasons:

• Holding on to your other characters loot, mail your stuff you can't sell to the AH until the weekend to your mule character who will mail it back at the end of the week. You'll save money on bags this way.

• Farming ore or herbs. Simple enough. Use your low-level mule character to run around low-level areas and gather up the available, (and always in demand,) resources there. You're not really trying to level this character, so it doesn't matter if you're not fighting the toughest of mobs.

• Mule characters are also the characters you want to employ to control the market, as mentioned before.

Personally I do find the method of controlling the market to make gold to be scummy, as I already stated. I mention it here for the purpose of giving you information that you could use, I'm not seriously suggesting it as a viable method of money making.

If you use these methods you will be well on your way to being able to afford those costly and pesky repairs, your flying mount and have something left over for some nicer gear.