I wrote this guide to try to help basically two sorts of players: newbies to WoW

and players who raced ahead in levels without learning how to make money (and

wonder why theyÂ’re always broke). Once you learn the tricks, itÂ’s pretty easy to

make good money in WoW. And if youÂ’re willing to work at it a little, you can

become rich.

There is really only one way for players under level 20 or so to get rich in WoW,

and thatÂ’s through picking the right professions. Most professions are moneysinks

at the lower levels. Sure, at higher levels some of these are big moneymakers.

But in general you have to invest a lot of gold to get there. But four

professions are money-makers from the start. These are:

Fishing

Mining

Skinning

Herbalism

All players can get Fishing. It is a “secondary” skill or profession (along with

Cooking and First Aid). All players can get all three of the secondary skills, so get

them as soon as you can (level 5 for fishing). In a nutshell you can at level 10 fish

in some fairly high level areas for certain fish that Alchemists need in their

potions (possibly for Enchanters, too). Please see my HOW TO FISH guide to

learn more. Mining, Skinning and Herbalism are “primaries”, and you can only

learn two of them.

PRIMARY SKILLS OR PROFESSIONS

You can only pick two of these. They include:

Alchemy potion making

Blacksmithing armor and weapon making

Enchanting granting magic powers to items

Engineering making bombs plus useful and wacky items

Herbalism* getting herbs for Alchemy (and maybe Enchanting)

Leatherworking make leather armor (and two small bags)

Mining * get metal and gems for Blacksm, Engi, etc.

Skinning* get skins for Leatherworking, Engi, etc.

Tailoring make cloth armor and many kinds of bags

If youÂ’ve already picked yours, donÂ’t panic. You can always ditch them and train

again in new ones. To lose skills hit K, select the skill, and hit Cancel. If you ever

want to relearn this skill, you can. ItÂ’s an inconvenience, but itÂ’s not that big a

deal.

You may have read on various sites how players recommend that a Paladin go

for Mining and Blacksmithing or a Hunter go for Skinning and Leatherworking, so

they can make their own armor. Mages, they say, should try Enchanting and

Tailoring – and so on. This sounds good in theory – “Hey, I’ll make my own armor

for free.” But in reality, if you’re in an established (i.e. not brand new) server or

realm, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Using Fishing and a combination of Mining, Skinning and Herbalsim, you can

make so much money that you can just pay for all the armor you need, get

enchantments for it, buy bigger bags, buy a pet, and still have money to burn! All

around level ten.

Why? On an established server higher level players have lots of money. They

mail it to their alts to spend or spend it themselves. Even though theyÂ’re high

level, they still need basic trade materials: copper, light leather, herbs, oily

blackmouths, firefin snappers, and so on. And theyÂ’re willing to pay you good

money for these things – things you can get before you’re even level ten.

WHICH TWO PRIMARY MONEY-MAKERS TO PICK?

I chose Mining and Skinning, and it has worked very well for me. Herbalism and

Skinning would work, too, although I donÂ’t think it makes as much money (you

still do okay – and I could be wrong). I don’t recommend Mining and Herbalism

for the simple reason that each of these gives you a “detection” skill on your minimap

to help you find resource nodes. It would drive me crazy to have to switch

between the two constantly, and if you donÂ’t constantly (and I mean every minute

or so) switch youÂ’ll miss nodes. But if you think you can handle it, be my guest.

HOW TO MINE

First you need to train in the skill. If youÂ’re a newbie this means leaving your

starting area and going up the road towards the next bigger town (or to your

raceÂ’s main city). Between the next bigger town and the city are guards (on the

road), most of whom will tell you (if you right click them) how to find a trainer.

Click on the bottom option (Profession Training) and then Mining. You get a

yellow arrow on your mini-map, and when you get close you get a red flag

showing where the trainer is. Easy.

Just right click the trainer and buy the skill (itÂ’s really cheap). Now buy a mining

pick. There is always a merchant near the trainer who sells these. You must have

it in your backpack or in a bag to be able to mine (not in your bank). Now you

need to find a mineral node to mine.

It helps to be at least level five or so to mine copper only because the nodes are

in areas where there are lots of monsters, and you need to be able to survive.

Note, Skinning is a good combo with Mining because a lot of the things that

attack you while you mine are Beasts – and this is precisely what you need to do

Skinning: dead beasts.

Copper nodes are scattered all over areas where level five and bigger creatures

lurk, like Elwynn Forest, Dun Morogh and Mulgore. They tend to be in hilly or

mountainous areas, often around the zoneÂ’s edges, but some are underwater

(just swim down and mine – you have plenty of air). When you buy the Mining

Skill you get several new skill “buttons” in your “book” (one of the buttons in the

middle bank of control buttons). Just click on the Detect Minerals button (copper

hammer icon) and get that same copper hammer appearing on the corner of your

mini-map. Now all copper nodes near you will show up on your mini-map as little

yellow dots.

YouÂ’ll have to spend some time exploring the lowbie zones to find the copper

nodes. Some are impossible – there is one in Elwynn, for instance, that has

literally a dozen wolves around it. Forget it. Leave it and move on. Sadly some

nodes are “broken”. You mine them and either get nothing or you get error

messages. Leave these and move on. Note, this is not the same as a “failure”

message. If you get a red “failed attempt” message as you mine, just try again

until it works.

To mine all you do is run up to a copper node. They are copper-colored lumps

with “crystals”. Right click it, wait, and click on the copper ore, rough stones, and

occasional gems that appear on the window. Each node is good for two to four

clicks. Then, it vanishes. Note where the node is. It will refresh itself over time –

sometimes right away, sometimes in about thirty minutes.

The quarry in the southeast part of Dun Morogh is a great place for copper, as

are the kobold mines in Elwynn. Sometimes youÂ’ll see a copper node on the

mini-map, but it simply “isn’t there”. Most likely it is underground! See if there is a

mine or tunnel entrance nearby. If so and if you can take on the monsters in

there, go for it. Excuse me for being obvious, but mines are great places to mine!

HOW TO SMELT

Once you get 20 copper ore you may want to sell it, but first you should Smelt it

into copper bars. You increase your Mining skill doing this (which is awesome),

and copper bars are what other players want to buy (itÂ’s what they use to make

things).

You get a smelting button with the Mining Skill (you may have to click the Next

button to see it). Find a forge and stand close to it. If you ask a guard where a

Blacksmithing trainer is you will almost always find a forge there. It can be a red,

glowing gizmo with an anvil (some forges are small), or it can be “The Great

Forge” in the center of Ironforge (just go there and stand to Smelt).

Click the smelting button and then Create All. Go make a sandwich. When you

come back you will have made twenty copper bars (if you started with 20 copper

ore), and you will have increased your Mining skill a lot! Great. Now you can sell.

WHAT ABOUT THE ROUGH STONES AND GEMS I FOUND?

Rough stones are turned into blasting powder by Engineers. This can be turned

into bombs or ammo for guns. If you plan to one day switch and become an

Engineer (or if you plan to play up an “alt” or secondary character as an Engi)

then save as many stacks of rough stones as you can in your bank. Otherwise

sell them to other players (more on this later) or sell them to npc merchants.

Gems are mostly used by Engineers for making things like scopes, goggles,

telescopes and so on. Some gems are used by Enchanters. You can sell these

to other players, but prices you can get vary a lot. Higher level gems are worth

much more. Gems youÂ’ll see at lower levels include Malachite, Tigers Eye, and

Shadowgem.

HOW TO SELL MY STACK OF COPPER BARS

Get to your side’s Auction House or AH to sell these, although you can do “/2

twenty copper bars for sale” in any zone to try to sell them in person on the trade

channel. I wouldnÂ’t. IÂ’d do the AH. The Alliance AH is in Ironforge, and the Hoard

AH is in Ogrimmar. Just right click a guard as you enter the city to get directions.

IÂ’ll be giving more advice on selling at the AH toward the end of this guide.

ADVANCED MINING

At Mining skill 50+ and I think adventuring level 10 you can go back to the trainer

and learn Journeyman Mining (I think you start as an Apprentice). When you start

your Mining skill cap is 75. But when you train as a Journeyman you get the skill

cap bumped up to 150.

With a higher skill you can mine and smelt tin. You can smelt copper and tin bars

into bronze bars (buy these abilities from the trainer). Want to know whatÂ’s

crazy? On my server tin sells for about the same price as copper, as does

bronze! IÂ’ve never even made bronze because itÂ’s such a waste (you in essence

“lose” a copper bar to combine it with tin to make bronze – the price of bronze

would have to be more than the price of tin and copper together for the creation

of bronze to make sense). I often donÂ’t even bother with tin because itÂ’s so much

faster and easier for me to go get 60 copper ores, instead. I know where the

copper is, and the monsters around the copper donÂ’t faze me now (tin is a pain to

get – maybe I need to work harder to find better deposits – but why should I if the

market for it is no better than copper?).

Warning, this is how it is in my server. In three weeks this could all change. I

have been seeing copper prices coming down lately. So who knows? Just keep

in mind that occasionally you hit skill caps and have to come back to pay the

trainer to get to the next “tier” of ability. It gets costly as you level up, so save

some money for this.

IÂ’ve just started mining iron. IÂ’ve never mined mithril or thorium, but apparently

you can make really good money on those. They require higher skill and high

adventuring levels (because these nodes are in some hairy places). If you keep

the Mining skill into the higher levels, thatÂ’s what youÂ’re going to be doing.

SKINNING

To get Skinning right-click a guard for directions to a trainer, either in your raceÂ’s

main city or in the village outside your main city. Right click the trainer to buy the

skill. Near the trainer youÂ’ll find a merchant selling skinning knives. Buy one. Like

with the mining pick, you need to keep this in your backpack or in a bag (not in

the bank).

Skinning is much simpler than Mining. There are no fancy buttons that come with

it. Simply kill a skinable beast (you canÂ’t skin spiders, and the very low level

beasts canÂ’t be skinned), loot it completely, and then hover your pointer over it.

You’ll see the pointer change to a “hide”. Right click. If you fail, right click again.

Soon you’ll get a window with “ruined scraps” or “light leather” in it. Save these.

Even ruined scraps can be sold for decent money.

You may come across a field where some other player has left three dead boars,

two dead bears and a dead snow leopard. If heÂ’s looted them, you can now skin

his kills. Cool, huh? If he’s there don’t do it too fast – he may be a skinner, too,

and itÂ’s really rude to skin other skinnerÂ’s kills.

Save your stacks of scraps and light leather, and put them in the Auction House

or AH when you have enough. Scraps donÂ’t always sell well on the AH (if so npc

merchants pay well for them), but light leather is always in demand. Hide is a

rare drop and sometimes gets more money than light leather. More on AH selling

later in this guide.

HERBALISM

Just like with the other skills, right click a town guard and get directions to a

trainer. Right click her and buy the skill. You get a button for “herb detection”. Hit

it, and you get a little “daisy” icon by your mini-map. Now all nearby herbs will

show up as yellow dots on your mini-map.

You can get Peacebloom and Silverleaf right outside Ironforge and Stormwind.

They can be anywhere, although Peacebloom tends to be in the sun and

Silverleaf in the shade of big trees. Earthroot is in the hills or mountains.

Stranglekelp is underwater.

When you find a plant, just right click it. If you fail, right click it again until a

window opens. Pick up your herbs. ThatÂ’s it. Unlike mining, the Herb node only

has one “harvest”. But Herb nodes tend to be more plentiful and easier to find

than mining nodes. Also fewer players tend to become Herbalists.

As you adventure, youÂ’ll see herbs all over the place. Some of the mining nodes

tend to be near clusters of troggs, gnolls or kobolds (and are hard to get), but

herb nodes tend to be out in the open and not so well guarded.

Once you have enough herbs, get to the AH and sell. I have a sneaking

suspicion that herbs sell better on PvP servers than PvE servers. I canÂ’t prove

this, but PvP players aggressively look for every “edge” they can get on other

players. Potions are a great way to get this edge. They can literally mean the

difference between winning and losing. That said, any smart player who wants to

get ahead in the game will want to learn about and use potions.

So there always is a market for potions (and for the herbs needed to make them).

I donÂ’t think the market is quite as good as the metals market, but herbs can be

sold for good money to other players. But I could be wrong. This isnÂ’t the only

guide on the Internet telling players to Mine and Skin to make money in WoW

(prices for metals and leather may come down some). It could be that most

players are overlooking Herbalism and that in the future there will be a good

market for it. If you try it and donÂ’t like it, itÂ’s pretty easy to ditch it and get some

other skill (to lose a skill hit K, pick the skill, hit Cancel). More on how to sell at

the AH later on in this guide.

BUT I DONÂ’T WANT TO JUST HARVEST STUFF; I WANT TO MAKE THINGS!

I understand. But itÂ’s really frustrating if youÂ’re burning up all the copper you find

in your Blacksmithing skill – and no one is buying the armor you make. You have

no extra money for bigger bags (this is a huge pain), for potions, for that rare blue

item you really want that sometimes appears in the AH, for fluff pets – even for

Griffon rides!

ThereÂ’s always a compromise. Maybe put the Blacksmithing on the back burner

a while and sell your copper for cash. If you find your Enchanting skill is eating

you alive, cancel it and make some cash. Gain about twenty levels and then go

back to Enchanting. At that point you can farm the “green” items you need to up

the Enchanting skill like crazy, and you can catch up in a few days. Try fishing.

Do what makes sense to you. All I want for you to know is that there are a lot of

ways to make money, even at the very lowest levels, and no one in WoW has to

be broke. There is nothing more pathetic than some clueless player whining and

begging for money when itÂ’s so easy to make!

MAKE YOUR ALTS WORK FOR YOU

Most players don’t just play one character. They have a “main” and an alternate

or “alt” character. Most people make an Alt because they get bored being one

thing too much. They see some other class having a lot of fun, and they want to

try that out.

But you can also make an Alt to be a money-maker for you. Again, you can make

really good money in WoW at level ten or below. And itÂ’s pretty easy to play up to

level ten. My first day in WoW I got my Hunter to lvl 10 (it was a long day, yes,

but I did it). You can leave your Main as a Engineer/Enchanter or whatever and

occasionally play your Alt to make money. Mailing the cash to your Main costs

only 30 cp.

A Hunter is a great choice for a Skinner because they get track beasts. A

Warlock or Hunter is good for any harvester because these classes can use their

pets to “take the heat” while running between nodes or while harvesting nodes

(Hunters don’t get pets until level ten; Warlocks don’t get a good “tanking” pet

that can taunt well and hold agro until level ten). Night Elves start far from the AH

in Ironforge, so if you want to play a NE consult my travel guide for getting there

fast and easy. For the Hoard it is the Tauren who start far from their sideÂ’s AH in

Ogrimmar (Undead are connected to Ogrimmar by a fast and easy to access

zeppelin that goes to their home city). Again, check my travel guide; itÂ’s not really

that bad getting a Tauren to the AH. But if you donÂ’t want to fool with this extra

trip, don’t make your “money maker alt” a NE or Tauren.

HOW TO SELL – UNDERSTANDING THE AUCTION HOUSE

Get to either Ironforge (Alliance) or Ogrimmar (Hoard) and find the Auction

House or AH. Consult my travel guide for tips to find these cities if necessary.

Remember, Stormwind is connected to Ironforge by tram. Undercity is connected

to Ogrimmar by zeppelin. Both rides are fast and free. Once in the city, right click

any city guard to get directions to the AH.

Press through the other players and right click an Auctioneer. Gnomes may need

to use a “high angle” camera view to find the Auctioneer (I’m not kidding!). You

get an auction window, and you should be in the Browse part of it.

Type the name of whatever youÂ’re selling and hit Search. Make sure you spell it

right. If there is lag it may either take 30 seconds to work, or it may not work at

all. The AH can be buggy at times. If it is, go do other things; maybe log out and

go get a burger or pizza. Just donÂ’t assume that if it tells you it canÂ’t find what

youÂ’re looking for that itÂ’s telling you the truth. At the time of this writing it is often

buggy.

Okay, lets say you’re selling a stack of 20 copper bars. Your search for “copper

bar” gives you the following information on other players’ auctions (bid and

buyout prices in SILVER money):

Akuzo 20 bars bid: 40 buyout: 60

Corino 20 bars bid: 48 buyout: 50

Corino 20 bars bid: 48 buyout: 50

Corino 20 bars bid: 48 buyout: 50

Corino 20 bars bid: 48 buyout: 50

Corino 20 bars bid: 48 buyout: 50

Corino 20 bars bid: 48 buyout: 50

Funkybat 20 bars bid: 45 buyout: 48

Hradakar 20 bars bid: 47 buyout: 55

Hradakar 11 bars bid: 24 buyout: 27

Joebob 10 bars bid: 29 buyout: 30

Joebob 10 bars bid: 29 buyout: 30

Kaolinda 20 bars bid: 42 buyout: 50

Kaolinda 20 bars bid: 42 buyout: 50

Margar 20 bars bid: 25 buyout: 30

Margar 20 bars bid: 25 buyout: 30

Margar 20 bars bid: 25 buyout: 30

Margar 20 bars bid: 25 buyout: 30

Gah! What does all this mean? Is this good or bad?

PLEASE, MY BRAIN IS BLEEDING – JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DO

“I’ve been playing 16 hours straight. I can’t think any more. Just tell me how to

sell my dumb copper and let me get to bed!” Okay! I will. Try to find the “average

price” in the above numbers. Don’t literally average them. Just eyeball it. It’s fifty

silver, right? Or is it 30? No, Joebob is only selling half-stacks, so donÂ’t get fooled

by him. Indeed the “average price” is 50 silver.

The no-brainer approach: if the “average” buyout price is 50, set your opening bid

for your stack of 20 copper bars at 45 silver and set a buyout price at 49 silver.

Click the “auction” tab, put your stack of copper in the little box, and then fill in the

numbers. Make sure you’ve done it right. Then set your auction for “long term”

and create the auction! If the average buyout price is 40 silver, start your auction

at 35 and set your buyout for 39. And so on.

Sometimes it’s literally as easy to find the “average price” as in the example

above. Sometimes the “average price” is really more a “cluster,” say a group of

sellers with buyouts at 52, 54, 55, and 56. In that case set a buyout of 51 to be

safe. YouÂ’re not the cheapest guy in the AH, but heÂ’ll get bought out fast. Over

the next 24 hours your price will eventually attract a buyer. You will almost

certainly sell. Your money will be in the mail tomorrow. Now go get some sleep!

WAIT, I WANT TO KNOW MORE – WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON IN THE AH?

Well, itÂ’s not that hard to figure out, so donÂ’t worry. It works a lot like Ebay. The

price is in silver to buy the whole stack – it’s not a price per unit. So the first guy,

Akuzo, will sell his stack of 20 copper bars if someone bids 40 silver and then no

one else comes along and outbids him or does buyout. The winning bidder gets

his stack of copper bars in the mail when the auction expires. At that point Akuzo

gets the silver money minus a small fee in the mail. If Akuzo never gets a bid, he

gets his copper bars back in the mail, and he can try again. Someone agreeing to

pay the buyout ends an auction right there.

But what’s the big deal with “buyout”; what’s that all about? Let’s say a player’s

got an Engineering skill of 145, and he really want to get that skill to 150. HeÂ’s

going to make five “orange” combines (each challenging or “orange colored

combine” always nets a skill up). This player needs four copper bars per combine

– or 20 bars. He’s most likely going to want to buyout. Why? He wants that

copper right now, and if he goes for the buyout option, he gets it in the mail

immediately. He wants the cheapest price, so Margar the Orc sells a full stack for

the 30 silver buyout price.

Most tradeskillers are going to want to “buyout” the trade supplies you sell.

Again, itÂ’s because they donÂ’t want to wait two, six, ten or more hours for the

auction to expire. They want it now because they want to do their combines now.

Their bank and bags are already full of stuff, and they donÂ’t want to sit on it

forever. ItÂ’s a supply-chain world in WoW for the skills, so to speak. There will

usually be no bidding wars for copper bars.

There may be a bidding war for a rare “blue” magic item. But when selling stuff

like copper bars, light leather and earthroot, “buyout is your friend” (I’ve heard

several players literally say this – I didn’t make it up).

Okay, looking at those prices in the table above, who is the clever Orc and who is

the dumb Orc? Well, Margar has the cheapest price per 20-stack at 30 silver.

HeÂ’s definitely going to sell all his hard earned copper. Is he the clever Orc?

Maybe, maybe not. Eye-balling it, what is the “average” buyout price? About 50

silver (donÂ’t let Joebob fool you). Are these guys selling at 50 really going to sell,

too? Yes, they most likely will. Margar will sell first, then Funkybat at 48 silver.

Then Corino and Kaolinda will start selling. Other players may come in with

cheaper buyouts and sell before them, but as long as they picked the longest

time for their auctions, Corino and Kaolinda will almost certainly sell all their

copper at 50 silver a stack.

Why? ItÂ’s because every once in a while a rich player will come along and buyout

as much copper as he can. He either wants to get his Alt to skill up a ton, or he

wants to make scads of bombs, or whatever. HeÂ’ll buy six or even a dozen stacks

of copper and almost wipe out the AH! He doesnÂ’t care what he pays, either,

although heÂ’ll probably buy the cheapest stacks first. After heÂ’s come through,

then players with higher-priced buyouts can and will sellÂ… usually.

ItÂ’s a small risk. Sometimes buyouts slightly above average work, occasionally

they donÂ’t. If they donÂ’t work you lose a little over silver (for the set up fee) and

can try again. ItÂ’s not that big a deal. But is it really worth it to take the risk for a

tad more silver? I canÂ’t say. ThatÂ’s up to you.

So which player is the really clever Orc in this AH scenario above? Well, itÂ’s

certainly not Margar. MargarÂ’s a really dumb Orc. Why? He saw a lot of people

selling copper and panicked! He said, “Oh no, too much competition! Must sell

cheap!” And he panicked himself into losing close to eighty silver. His impulse to

underbid was good. Underbidding helps “guarantee” a sale. But what did Margar

the panicky Orc do? He way-underbid and screwed himself out of a big chunk of

profit he should have made for all his hard work mining four stacks!

If he’d only taken a moment to think: “who is buying from me? Rich Engineers

and Blacksmiths. What do they want? The cheapest buyout” – he would have

concluded he only needed to SLIGHTLY undercut the average price. People who

come to the AH for copper are going to buy. To sell you donÂ’t have to be ultralow,

just lower than most other players. Had he set his price at 49 silver 75

copper it would have worked. He would have made almost 80 silver more!

So please donÂ’t be a dumb Orc like Margar. If you want to undercut other sellers,

do yourself a favor and do it slightly, please.

So, who is the really clever Orc? The clever Orc is the one who bought out

Margar’s panic-based low buyouts and resold them for a “proper” price! This Orc

will make almost 80 silver off Margar – and for no work to boot! But is there

another clever Orc? Yes. Take a look at Joebob and Hradakar. WhatÂ’s up with

them? They are selling stacks not in multiples of 20.

Hradakar had 11 copper bars – an odd lot – leftover, and he just tried to prorate

his price down, based on what heÂ’s charging for his full stack. But Joebob is

doing something altogether different, isnÂ’t he?

A FINESSE PLAY AT THE AH – SPLIT YOUR STACKS FOR MORE PROFIT

Joebob came to the AH with 20 copper bars but SPLIT them into two equal

stacks of ten (hold Shift and click). Each stack is for sale for 30 silver (grand total

of 60 silver). WhatÂ’s his deal? Joebob is trying an AH finesse move. He thinks he

can get a lot more silver out of his hard-earned copper if he sells them in smaller

stacks. For one thing an impulsive player whose eyes are bleeding from playing

16 hours straight may not bother to notice his stack-size is half the othersÂ’. This

player may see 30 silver and just buyout, thinking heÂ’s getting a good deal.

So is Joebob a criminal? Maybe not. Maybe other players come to the AH and

don’t need a full stack of copper. Maybe a player only needs nine copper bars –

and MargarÂ’s cheap full stacks have just been bought out and re-auctioned at 49

silver. So is this player going to pay 49 or 50 silver for a full stack and merchantdump

11 copper bars? No! HeÂ’ll pay 30 silver to Joebob for 10 copper bars and

only have to merchant-dump one bar. This player gets what he wants. And

Joebob gets what he wants: top buyout price for his copper.

Remember, for most players bag and bank space is limited. No one wants to

have to keep copper bars for this reason. They often want to buy and use on

demand.

Will JoebobÂ’s stack-splitting finesse always work? I donÂ’t know. I just started it

myself, and so far IÂ’ve had mixed results. Once you get established in your WoW

business and get some experience with the AH, give it a try. It may work for you!

AH PITFALLS

Read the auctions very carefully. Make sure youÂ’re getting a full stack. Watch out

for players who “accidentally” set a stack of copper bars for sale for 40 GOLD

instead of 40 silver at buyout. A rich player who actually has 40 gold can lose it

fast this way, if he clicks without carefully reading.

If you’re selling, don’t accidentally set your buyout for gold – or you probably

wonÂ’t sell. If you accidentally set the buyout for copper instead of silver, you will

lose a fortune. If you screw up (and notice it) just cancel the auction and reset it.

DonÂ’t set your buyouts for cheaper than what NPC merchants will pay you!

Check out what prices are. Write them down on paper if necessary.

Just take your time and do it right every time. That way youÂ’ll be happy!

SELLING OTHER HARVESTED STUFF

Your stacks of herbs, your light leather, your Oily Blackmouth fish and so on –

sell them the same way as I outlined for copper. Search the AH, get an idea of

what prices are, and set a buyout that feels good to you. Maybe you have three

stacks of “ruined scraps” and no one else is selling them. What price should you

set? See what the non-player-character or NPC merchant will pay. Do “/1 what

should I sell a stack of 20 Ruined Scraps for please?” See what other players

say. Then gauge it accordingly. As long as youÂ’re getting better than what an

NPC merchant would pay, youÂ’re doing okay (remember to factor in the AHÂ’s

fees).

DIRECT SELLING

If youÂ’re a Miner, Skinner, Herbalist or Fisherman, buyout at the AH is your

friend. ItÂ’s easy and safe. You donÂ’t need to fool with trying to sell directly to other

players.

Occasionally you may see someone doing “/2 want to buy stacks of light leather.”

What do you do? Well if you happen to have some light leather on you, and if you

know what AH prices are, you can safely sell to this person directly. Try to agree

on a price. If they wont pay at least AH prices, wish them a good day and move

on. If you like their price, arrange to meet them. Right click their “picture” and hit

“trade”. You get a trade window.

Put your stack or stacks in the window on your side (look for your picture and

name) and wait for them to put in the right amount of money AND to commit (or

turn their side of the trade window green). When their side has the proper money

and is green, then click Sell.

DonÂ’t click Sell earlier. Scumbag players like Margar the Orc can pull some of the

money out and shortchange or rip you off. So if you happen to play on a server

that starts with “K” and have an Orc named Margar try to trade with you, do

yourself a favor and make a rude gesture at him, instead (and put him on your

/ignore list) – he’s a lowlife thief who will pull just this trick on you. This is a real

exploit, and players like Margar really exist (on a server that starts with “K”) and

really do this. Make a rude gesture at him for me if you see him. And have

nothing to do with him and players like him.

OTHER WAYS TO MAKE MONEY

At higher levels one of the best ways to make money is to get rare and highly

desirable magic items. Some players make groups specifically to go hunt down

bosses for such items. IÂ’ve heard of groups of Rogues with maxed Sneak skills

going on “instance raids” – they sneak to the back, kill the bosses, loot em, sneak

out, get a new instance (they may have to break up and reform for this), and do it

again and again (until their bags are bulging with items). IÂ’ve never tried this

myself, but it sounds doable.

Another way to make money is to luck into very rare and highly desirable drops,

like a Tiny Crimson Whelpling. This is a little fluff pet, a baby dragon that hovers

in the air by your shoulder and looks cute as all heck. Last I looked on my server,

the buyout price for one of these was 105 gold! Actually there are three kinds,

red, black and green. The red can be hunted starting in the low 20Â’s in the

Wetlands (Eastern Island). More on these on my Pet guide.

MAKING USE OF THE NEUTRAL AUCTION HOUSE IN GADGETZAN

Please see my travel guide on how to get to the goblinÂ’s neutral city, Gadgetzan.

There you will find down some steps a “neutral” AH. This is the only place where

Hoard and Alliance players can trade objects and money. If you want to start a

WoW “smuggling” operation, this is where you do it.

I learned the hard way that you can’t bid on “your own” auction – you can’t bid on

auctions set by characters in the same account. But if you can get a friend to

help you (or if you own two accounts), you can trade objects (and money) from

side to side. And you can make money doing this.

IÂ’ve done some smuggling of Hoard-dropped and Hoard-purchasable items to

Alliance side, and if you know what youÂ’re doing you can make good money at

this. But it’s a complex subject and requires its own guide (soon to come – look

for part of this in my pet guide – and I may have to do a separate smuggling

guide).

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