Making gold in WoW

I am sure everybody has seen the websites telling you how to make money in World of Warcraft. Most of them even charge you $9.99 or more to learn their secrets. I am going to share with you how to make money without charging you a thing, just total free information. This also takes into account you are just trying to make money for yourself, not max out reputations, raid, etc.

Let's start with making sure you are ready to go make gold. 18 slot bags are readily available, and are the one investment from the AH you should purchase. More bag space equals more junk you can haul and store. If you don't already have one, create a low level character and park him in Stormwind or Ironforge. This is your bank mule. This character sells your junk on the AH, holds your money, and stores anything else you might need. Since the mail time is now instant between characters on the same account, there is no reason to not have a bank mule.

On your character, make sure you have your hearthstone, mount, bandages, food/water, and any spare armor/weapons you may need. Everything else needs to be in the bank. Pick up mining/herbalism and skinning; make sure they are at max level. If you wish to have another profession, understand that it will be a serious drain on resources and cash, and you won't get your money back out of it. None of the professions (except gathering ones) are very profitable.

Starting at when you enter outlands, you will notice an increase in the amount of gold you receive from quest alone. Most solo quest net you 2 to 4g a piece, plus armor/weapons as quest rewards on some of these. Keep 50g on yourself; send everything else to your bank mule. Quest, drops, and dungeons will keep your character in armor and weapons. Only buy something on the AH if you are seriously lacking. The quests in outlands are laid out beautiful, so there is no reason to not grab every one you can get. When heading to do quests, kill everything on your way to that quest location, and loot everything. This will net you some greens, possible blues or epics, vendor trash, drink, food, and meat. I can't emphasize enough to loot everything. Most grey weapons vendor for over 2g, and armor from 75s and up. Some of the raw meat can be used in cooking recipes, which either you or somebody else will need. When choosing a quest reward, if you don't need any of the rewards, take the plate reward, or the weapon reward for higher vendor prices. Keep an eye out for ore/herb nodes, and skin all animals you can. Once you go back to the quest hub, mail all the AH goods to yoru mule. All greens and gathered skins, herbs/ore, and raw meat need to be sent to the AH. If you are a cook, cook the raw meat and send whatever excess is left to the AH. If you do this till 70, you will have enough gold to purchase your normal flying mount. Most people dont have money at 70 for their mount because they are trying to level a profession like blacksmithing, or buy all new armor/weapons every level, or just blow it on little things. I would suggest as well, unless you are just dying to get to 70 fast, that from about 68.5 to 70 you stop questing, go to Shadowmoon, and grind on fire elementals till 70. I did this on my mage and ended up with a ton of primal fires to supplement my income.

Now you are 70, looking at the daunting task of getting another 5000g to get your epic flying mount. You should at this point have 1 or maybe 2 zones left to quest in. Don't stop questing now because instead of experience, you get added gold as a reward. Now most quests will get you over 11g to complete. As mentioned before I usually leave Shadowmoon and Netherstorm questing alone till 70. This gives a little over 1000g total in quest reward income. All 70's with their flying mounts need to be doing daily quest. Doing the Ogrila and Sha'tar quest will net you over 60g for about an hours work, and these are very easy quest, can be soloed by any spec or any class.

Currently in WoW there are a few things that are guaranteed to sell on the AH. Primals, raw ore, bars, herbs, leather and rep turn ins. Log onto your mule; see what the various primals go for. Normally fire goes for 30g, the rest around 20 to 25g. Because of this primal fire farming spots are generally over camped, and it is not very time efficient to farm them. Wind has limited areas as well, but usually you can find a few in Shadowmoon. Mana is abundant in Netherstorm, and water is all over Nagrand. Shadow now only drops from demons, and life from bog type creatures. Look also for aldor and scryer rep items. Tomes, Fel armament, rings and marks are all hot sellers. See which faction's items sell for more and farm for them. For Scryers and Aldor, there is nice farming spots in Shadowmoon.

This concludes the grinding/farming guide to making money. For additional resources www.wowhead.com has an immense database which I use to look up where various items drop. The next installment of making money in wow will cover re-running low level instances, and the AH.