WoW Classic is up and running and I've been bitten by the nostalgia bug. Here is a revised version of one of my earliest ever posts on this blog about making money as part of the levelling process. The original was written in the early days of The Burning Crusade but since most of my alts were low level its very relevant for Classic.
So many people seem to struggle to make enough money in Warcraft. Here are some tips to make it a lot easier.
1: Buy the biggest bags you can afford and upgrade them when you can. Bigger bags means you can carry more stuff and spend more time in the field.
2: Create a second character that is to act as your bank and salesperson. Give them a starting fund and mail all your saleable items to them. Run them up to the nearest capital city and let them log out next to the mailbox. This means your main character has less downtime between trips. Postage is very cheap, a handful of copper per transaction.
3: A little later, consider making another bank alt and parking them at the neutral auction house in Gadgetzan. Cross faction trades can be quite valuable.
4: As soon as you can afford it after level 5, get trained in at least one gathering skill, preferably two. Gathering skills that work well for novices are probably skinning and one of mining or herbalism. Remember to buy the equipment needed as well. Enchanting is a good gathering skill for more experienced players, when used for its disenchant ability.
5: Take the items you gather and sell them on the auction house. Ores can be sold, as can bars. Just check to see which has the higher going rate. Herbs and leathers sell fairly well, though unprocessed hides tend not to be so successful. Befriend a leather-worker and pay them to process them for you.
6: Never throw away loot. Take any of the grey equipment and sell to the vendors. Any cloth that you aren't using yourself should be kept and sold on the auction house. White and Green quality items can be used or sold on the auction house. Bind on pickup items can be disenchanted. Blue bind on equip items should be sold on the auction house or directly on /trade channel in cities.
7: Know the value of items. External websites often have average values for items but each server is different. Make sure you check the auction house or ask in /trade before selling or auctioning white or better items.
8: Install an auction house mod to assist in pricing. Auctioneer was my go-to in original wow but doesn't appear to have a classic remake yet.
9: Take some note of the deposit costs to list items on the auction house. Plate and Mail items are often quite expensive to list so be sure you set a price that will sell. Also be sure to put both a bid and a buyout price on items, since lazy people will hit buyout to get the item instantly rather than wait for the auction to expire. Items without buyouts often do not sell.
10: Take advantage of people's laziness. Many vendors around the world have recipes for sale. Some are limited run items on a timer. Nearly all of these can be bought and resold on the auction house for at least 300% profit. Be careful not to flood the market with any one item.
11: Resist the temptation to buy anything except bigger bags from the auction house. The gear you get from quest rewards and instance dungeons is more than adequate to level up in. Don't waste money on getting low level items enchanted either. You will soon outgrow the item.
12: Pets can make a modest to rather nice profit. Cross-faction pets can be even better if you have some way of transferring them via the neutral auction house or in cooperation with another player.
13: Be aware of the most common and beneficial crafting recipes and sell your harvested materials in partial stacks that are either slightly less or slightly more than the most common recipes. eg. a bag may require 9 raw cloth, so sell stacks of 8 and 3 on the market, with the cost per cloth being higher on the 3-stack.
14: Use the mail system as very cheap 30-day storage rather than spend money on bank bag slots. Use extra alt characters for additional storage - just level them up enough to get to the nearest city with a mailbox and bank.
15: Hunters and Druids make decent farming characters with their tracking skills and shape-shifting abilities respectively.
16: Spend a bit of time while levelling just killing humanoid characters to farm cloth drops. This is most effective when you out level the mobs somewhat but while they are still green for a bit of exp.
17: Do not just throw away certain items like milk, feathers, eggs, meats. These are needed for various things such as cooking recipes, some leather-work and tailoring, and hunter pet food. Even breads and mushrooms may have better than vendor prices on the auction house.
18: Watch for opportunities to buy cheap stuff from players for later sale. A metalworker may be crafting green items to level up. You can buy them cheap in bulk, then resell to an enchanter who disenchants them for materials. Build a network of contacts, or your own alts, that can make use of trade synergies.
19: Revisit lower level zones and instanced dungeons when you are significantly over level. You can clear the dungeon very fast and gather large quantities of materials. I used to make 10-15 gold per run through RageFire Cavern from cloth and green drops at the end of original vanilla WoW. Stockades in Stormwind was not quite as valuable.
20: Look for exploitable mission mechanics. The Barrens mission that summons a white lion can be attractive to hunters looking for a somewhat unique pet. A horde player could assist an alliance hunter to access this unique mob and be rewarded through the neutral auction house. Some missions generate waves of humanoid NPCs to fight, some of which drop cloth. The triggers for this can often be reset.
Using these tips it is easily possible to have the gold needed for your skills as you level and your basic and epic mounts. The same strategies will serve you well all the way till max level, where you can change your professions to do crafting if you wish.
