Warcraft Rookie: Earn Your Gold
by David Nelson 
Sep 15th 2006 at 4:30PM
[Warcraft Rookie is a series of posts dedicated to the new WoW player]We have all been there.
There is a level 16 sword on the auction house that would totally make your warrior uber for the next 2 levels. You have to have this sword. One problem...the bidding has gone higher than the gold in your pocket. What to do? You have two options (and we will assume that gold buying is not one of them):
A. Earn the Money. Leave the auction house area and go and try to grind the gold you need before the auction ends. You could sell some items that you normally wouldn't to make up the difference. Heck, if it is that important, sell your bags.
B. Beg. You could go up to random strangers and ask for the gold. Or you could bother some new guildies (you are level 16, all your guildies are new guildies!) for the gold.
If you chose A, you chose wisely. All new players struggle with money, quests , and, on PvP servers, ganking. Such is the life of a level 16 in Azeroth. If you chose B, you chose very, very unwisely. People who beg for money are often mocked in tells, yells and nearly everywhere else. Your rep is taking a hit that could be hard to recover from. Sure, you might give up this character after 20 levels, but you never know!
You don't want the rep of being an annoying beggar following you around. And if you think it won't follow you around and people won't remember, think again. People generally put the beggars on their ignore list, which means they might not remember why they put you on there, but they do know that you annoyed them enough to make them do it. That could be the difference between getting into the raiding guild of your choice or running UBRS for the hundredth time.
Be a good WoW citizen. Don't beg for gold.
New Term For Rookies
UBRS
Ganking
Filed under: Tips, Economy, WoW Rookie, Making money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
AcceptableRisk Sep 15th 2006 5:01PM
Or you can pick Option C. Just deal with it.
Equipment is about the worst thing you can get from the Auction House if you ask me. It's a poor investment, especially at low levels. You'll just be throwing it away in no time. There is plenty of good equipment to be had in instances or from quests. Plus you get experience, both character and practical, along the way.
Elodren Sep 15th 2006 5:27PM
The best advice I could give to a rookie who wants to get serious gold early on and build up a nice stash of it is to pick two gathering professions as soon as you can. Mining and skinning are very nice. As you complete quests here and grind some there, you skin and you mine. You will get a respectable amount of gold very quickly and you can even make more than enough by level 40 to buy your mount.
Rothoscand Sep 15th 2006 5:37PM
If you need to earn, most of the AH's are near lvl 10-20 areas. Go kill bears or spiders or hit some of the caves/mines if you're high enough level. Take everything you can and vendor it. Typically, you'll profit enough after repairs and the XP is worth it as well.
Unkle Sep 15th 2006 6:11PM
Skinning is a great profession for making money, because you can skin the majority of the things you will be killing on the way up.
One thing I would like to know though, is good places for gathering herbs and ore.
I found a great spot right out front of Orgrimmar for gathering copper, but other than that ... I don't know where to go. The resources are scattered out all over in low numbers, and unless you can run very fast or have a mount, it takes hours just to farm a stack or something.
Does anyone know good concentrated areas to farm ore & herbs?
dave nelson Sep 15th 2006 6:46PM
You can level up to 75 very easily in the starting zones, then up to 150 in the zones after that. The problem is, if you don't level up those tradeskills as you go, you will be wandering around looking for mithril or kingsblood, which while not terribly hard to find, is terribly boring. :) If you have herbalism or mining 1-60 you will find enough of everything just on your regular travels to hit 300 long before you hit 60.
Once you start looking for the higher end ore and herbs, the leveling process slows down tremendously, but if you score some Dreamfoil or other rare herbs or ore you can sell it for the big bucks.
If you look at this WoW forum post and scroll down a bit you will see a how-to guide of leveling herbalism or mining from 1-300.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=14733438&sid=1
Finally, I would suggest grabbing the Gatherer mod, as it lets you keep track of where you have harvested stuff before, so you know where ore/herbs will spawn again.
kG Sep 15th 2006 7:25PM
Beggars get an immediate /ignore from me now. This after one fool followed me around, opening a trade window over and over. If you beg for money, you should be prepared for the time when you will not be able to talk to anyone about anything.
S - DragonMaw Sep 16th 2006 2:50AM
My current character has herbalism and skinning and i found Swiftthistle to be the big earner. its a rare drop with other flowers and can be dropped as early as the last 10-20s skill in herbalism. It generally sells anywhere from 1-10g per stack!
Also like was said, skinning is a quick lo-lvl earner
R.O.B. Sep 16th 2006 7:03AM
I got an Undead Herbalist/Alchemist that's been really raking in the cash for me lately. Of course, the individual herbs can sell pretty well for some, but it isn't so on my server. Here's what I've found: individual Swiftness Potions sell easily for about 20S, and the components are very common in southern Silverpine Forest.