How to Make Gold in World of Warcraft (WoW) Without Cheating

The following information will teach you how to make as much gold as you want in World of Warcraft, without spending money buying it from some dude in another country, without third party programs or cheat guides you have to buy off of ebay.

All it requires is time, dedication, and the willingness to actually play the game for some kind of reward. You don't have to spend any money to get your gold. Without going into the algebraic equations that concern cost benefit analysis and opportunity cost, read on to find ways in which you can raise gold without spending it.

One of the methods by which you can make in game money on World of Warcraft is by farming. Farming is a term which refers to killing creatures repeatedly and collecting all the goodies they drop when they die. This method is particularly effective when you need to collect hundreds of pieces of cloth or are hunting down an item which drops off of a particular creature.

Farming can be very profitable, if you are smart about it. Here are my top three picks for farming spots:

1. The Halaani Basin, Nagrand. In the waterways below the pvp objective of Halaa live dozens of packs of lake surgers, water elementals who have a poison affect. They are mid-60's level creatures and relatively easy to kill. Their loot table is full of green items with random enchants, as well as Oshu-gun Crystal Powder (a turn in for Halaa Research Tokens.) The vendor trash items dropped by these surgers ranges in worth from 45 silver to 3 gold, so they're worth the farming just based off of vendor trash alone. Lake surgers also drop Mote of Water, ten of which create a Primal Water. Primals are essential to various crafted patterns, and so they sell for a premium rate (20-30 gold per Primal!)
2. Howling Fjord, Northrend. Kill Vrykul by the dozens for cloth, drops and vendor trash. Don't forget to make use of your gathering professions along the way. There are also plenty of pockets of shoveltusk just begging for AoE destruction and quick looting. Because this area of Northrend is one of the "starting zones" of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, the respawn rates on most of the creatures is extremely fast, giving you a great opportunity to make gold hand over axe.
3. Umbrafen Lake, Zangarmarsh. The Umbrafen creatures are easily defeated if your character is anywhere near max level, and drop massive amounts of vendor trash and Netherweave Cloth. Netherweave cloth is still a valuable crafting material, and on a good day the stack of cloth that took you perhaps five Umbrafen kills to acquire will sell for between 5 and 9 gold. Disenchant the loot you receive from these monsters and sell the powder or crystals you get from that to rake in an easy and tidy sum of gold.

The other reliable method of earning gobs of money in the game is through professions. I will warn you, levelling any profession is a costly endeavor, generally requiring expenditure of gold or time spent farming for the proper materials. However, once you've hit the cap in your chosen professions, then you can start making the big bucks. There are two types of professions: Gathering and Crafting.

Generally speaking, your choices in professions are only limited by the amount of work you want to do in your search for a six figure gold balance. The best way to make the most of your professions, considering the want for profit, would be to either take complementary professions such as Herbalism and Alchemy, or to take two gathering professions.

Your available choice of gathering professions are: Skinning, Mining, and Herbalism. Enchanting can be argued as a gathering profession, however in the case of the other gathering professions, which require less than one silver's worth of in game money invested, I argue that enchanting is purely a crafting profession.

• Skinning allows you to take the hide from beasts and dragonkin.
• Mining allows you to mine ore veins for metals and gems.
• Herbalism allows you to pick herbs and flowers, as well as allows you to 'skin' certain elementals.
• Fishing allows you to equip a fishing rod and - you guessed it - fish up acquatic animals and sometimes a scroll case or debris.
• Archaeology allows you to search dig spots for pieces of artifacts which you can sell once you've collected enough pieces. You will also learn about Warcraft Lore through the completion of these artifacts, and some of them have actual uses!

These professions provide pure profit. Everything you gather can be sold on the auction house with a minimal deposit, or to a vendor, and you can level these professions at minimal cost while you level your character.

While there is the opportunity for making gold at a high rate with crafting professions, the market is fierce, and the investment outweighs the profit. In a sense, you lose money by taking up a crafting profession. It is the opinion of the author that a true profit-seeker will take up two gathering professions.