Gold Making 101: Darkmoon Faire

Darkmoon Faire is one of the best ways to easily gain some starting gold. The Faire is often used by gold makers for the pets you can purchase with Darkmoon Prize Tickets. When you are starting out you will likely not have professions to level 75 but if you do I recommend doing the weekly profession quests. Feel free to do the daily quests as well. They will award you a Darkmoon Game Prize that will contain a prize ticket as well as a chance at one of the pets!

If you are starting out and don't have the funds to participate in the Darkmoon Fair festivities then there is one thing you can do to net yourself a nice chunk of gold. You guessed it (maybe) fishing!! Now before you jump for joy keep in mind it takes a bit of walking too.

Once you arrive on the Darkmoon Faire island head south to the docks. Located on the dock is a fishing trainer named Steven Stagnaro. You will need to learn fishing with him but that is it! You do not need to purchase a fishing pole and you do not need to purchase lures. You will be fishing in pools so you will be able to fish up what is inside them regardless of your level.

You will want to travel around the island and look for shipwreck debris pools. They look like little pools with pieces of wood and wooden crates in them. They will spawn fairly close to shore so keep an eye on the water as you walk around. Also keep in mind there will be a few part where land is scarce and swimming might be necessary.

When you fish in these pools you will receive sealed crates. Some pools will even have 2 crates in them.

Contained in these crates will be a variety of goodies. Some will be items better suited for a vendor and some with net you a nice bit on the auction house. The best part is, some of the items are current expansion materials so they sell fast on the auction house. If you are lucky enough to fish up a Sea Pony then you will have a nice pet to auction as well!

I wasn't fortunate enough to fish up the pet but I did get myself 6 crates. Inside was over 3 gold, some vendor items (shown in the top row), and some materials for me to sell on the auction house (middle row). I only ran one lap around the island but feel free to make as many rounds as you like.

I went straight to the auction house with my items and posted them. Please note that the red potion (stack of 8) item you see in my bags is called Master Healing Potion and it requires a hefty deposit to post. The other items have a small fee compared to the potions so I recommend posting the other items first and maybe trying to sell the potions in trade. I posted mine on the auction house before I noticed how much of a fee was charged to post them. I got lucky and they sold but I could have just as easily lost roughly 3 gold. When starting out 3 gold is quite a bit to lose but always keep in mind that it is just gold and we can always earn it back.

The next day when I checked my mail I had a nice surprise waiting for me. almost all of my auctions had sold! This makes the Darkmoon Faire my favorite way to get some starting gold. You have to wait for it to arrive the first Sunday of every month but when it does it is worth the wait!

Gold Making 101: Build Investment Gold

Once you have a character created you will need to head out to the gold tree. Do you hear that Blizzard? We want a gold tree!! Sadly, there is no gold tree.  Blizzard has yet to respond to my many emails regarding this suggestion so we will have to go about it the old fashioned way.

Loot Everything

I can’t emphasize the importance of this enough. Every little bit adds up and you never know when you might loot that special item worth a pretty penny on the auction house. You can also get quite a bit from items you vendor.  You will also want to hold onto any green gear you pick up. Transmogrification is a hot thing right now and you never know when something might be worth quite a bit to someone. It will take a little extra work but research each piece of gear and to see how rare and desirable it is. Even the less desirable items can be sold for a few gold to those who don’t want to purchase the higher priced transmog items.

Quest rewards

Sometimes a quest will offer you gear that you can’t use. It might be that there isn't an upgrade or they simply aren't offering the type of gear you use. In these situations always mouse over each piece and take a look at the vendor price. There can sometimes be quite a bit of a discrepancy. You will want to select the item that sells for more. This is a nice little trick for getting the most out of questing. 

Take notice of the amount of copper these two items from the same quest sell for. Willem's Mitts will net me 8 copper from the vendor whereas the Peacebringer's Staff will net me 32 copper. That's 24 extra copper! When you are just starting out these can add up quick.

Professions

Pick up two gathering professions. You will likely change at least one if them to a crafting profession but for now you want to gather as much as you can so you can sell it on the auction house.  Which two gathering professions you pick is up to you. Consider looking on the auction house to see what seems to have a good price for low level mats.

Blingtron

If you decide to make a bank character be sure to create a Troll or Orc for the Horde side and a human if you are going with Alliance. The reason for this is because you want to be in high population city (like Orgrimmar or Stormwind) so you can have a better chance to come across a Blingtron 4000. The Blingtron is created by engineers and offers a daily quest to everyone. The daily quest will award you a Blingtron 4000 Gift Package which can contain some grey vendor items that sell for up to 20 gold. That means you can earn as much as 20 gold per day profit if you can manage to find one each day. It also has the chance of dropping some engineering pets and mounts as well as some other items that sell well on the auction house. Blingtron will show up on your map as a blue daily quest. You can hover over the blue exclamation point on your map and it will show you if it is Blingtron or something else.

Guild Signatures

People often offer gold in exchange for guild charter signatures. You can sometimes find people giving out up to 100 gold for your signature. Keep a close eye on trade for this. All it requires is for you to click one button! It’s as easy as that. Once the guild is formed be sure to /gquit so you can be available to sign future guild charters. This can be a profitable way of building starting capital.

Watch Trade for Free Items or Deals

Often people will give things away for free in trade. They dislike the idea of destroying or vendoring items that they feel can be useful to someone. Be that someone!! No matter what it is you can make something of it even if you ultimately sell it to a vendor. Some of those items might sell for as much as 20 gold to a vendor. That can mean the difference between struggling to get started and actually getting started on flipping items.

This lovely item popped up in trade while I was auctioning some copper I mined. This person was offering it for free! I didn't accept the item because I wanted to only use things that everyone has access to. However, I highly recommend watching trade for these sorts of things. Even if you sell it to the vendor for the 6 gold that is still a nice bump up from nothing. That 6 gold can go along way for making some small investments. 

Gold Making 101: A fresh start

For my Gold Making 101 series I will outline the basic information for gold making for the player completely new to WoW. That means no selling account bound pets. Although I highly recommend this if you have these assets from another server.

The Bank Toon

You have the option to create a bank character or just use the character you are leveling. I recommend making a character that is dedicated to just doing auctions and holding materials you may need later. You will sometimes hold off on selling something until the market is better and it is good to have a place to store it so that it is not in the way.  Another issue that can arise is the beggar complex.  When you start to sell quite a bit you will get a reputation for having gold. This can sometimes cause issues with your guildies or WoW pals so it can be useful to separate your gold making reputation from your main characters. This is of course optional and it is up to you. There are quite a few sellers who do so on their main characters without any issues.

Misselane

Meet Misselane. She will be test subject for my Gold making 101. I have created her on a random low population server to put my advice to the test. She is going to build her fortune from scratch without using and assets from another server. I will use what I learn from her to give you workable advice about how to start from scratch. I will also avoid anything that is pure luck. If someone in trade randomly gives away 100 gold I will resist the temptation and instead stick to the more common methods. However, if you see anything for free I advise you to take two!

Gold Making 101

I have been playing wow for over 3 years and it has only been recently that I have discovered the art of gold making. I, like many players, assumed that it required spending actual money on guides or that gold making was just too time consuming. When talking of gold making people always used the word “farming”. This was the greatest turn off for me. The idea of spending endless hours doing a repetitive task seemed unpleasant. I had already leveled my main characters fishing to max and I had filled my quota of such tasks. Fortunately, the reality is much different. Farming does have its usefulness. If you are looking to build a starting capital and you have absolutely nothing then farming can be a good way to build it. You also have the option of questing or even dailies to build from if you are high enough level. If you have a crafting profession as well as a matching gathering profession then you can gather materials and convert them to items to sell on the auction house. All of these things are fairly intuitive once you have played the game for a bit. They won’t make you millions but they will get you started with a little gold in your pocket to invest.

This brings me to the secret of gold making (drum roll)…… Investment.  Those who make a significant amount of gold are doing so because they are in a constant state of investing. If you have 20 gold in your pocket you only have 3 options for it. Let it sit and do nothing, purchase something for yourself or invest it. The latter is the gold maker. The reason people tend to shy away from investing is because there is risk involved. It is important to keep in mind that if you fail miserably it is ok. You aren't investing real money. You can recoup what you invest via the standard methods of farming, questing/dailies and crafting. I prefer a 50/50 method of investing. I save 50% and set it aside for things I might want to purchase for myself and I invest the other 50%. Given some time you will find what works for you.