So there was a big kerfuffle at the Greedy Goblin blog about him outing another blogger for being an overly-aggressive marketer. I felt kind of bad for the other blogger until he openly called Gevlon a 'twat' which is the kind of word that strips away any credibility your position may have. All of this arose around the idea of a 'gold-making guide' that you pay Real(tm) money for.
Gold is in WOW as a cap on your activity. Just as professions have crafting cooldowns and some spells have individual cooldowns, and raid lockouts are in place, gold throttles your activity. It is a necessary part of the game. But to me I can't see why gold-making is such a hot button item, and why people need to go out of their way to generate it.
To orient this post, I want to lay out my view of the role of gold in the game. In my view, only the following aspects of the game absolutely require you to have gold:
-Repairs (incidental)
-Flight Paths (especially while leveling, not so much at the level cap)
-Money to train new class skills
-Mount money (same as flight paths.)
-Talent respecs as necessary (greatly reduced with Dual specialization available)
I would also add large bags to this in that being able to carry tons of crap to vendor provides you with enough money to play.
(My gold guide)
1. Invest in large bags.
2. Vendor the crap and quest rewards, and auction the rest. (The most important step)
3. Profit!
The next category of aspects come into play mostly at the level cap. I don't think you will fully experience the game at the level cap unless you spend significant money on the following:
-Gems/enchants/glyphs
-Professions
If you are a serious player into raid progression, you will also be required to pay for:
-Repairs (from multiple wipes in expensive-to-repair epic gear)
-Consumables (flasks mostly)
-Expensive top-level enchants and gems
As far as I can see, all the rest is purely optional. I will try to explain why I feel this way for each item:
-Epic mount. You can be summoned to any dungeon (and in 3.3 instantly warp to a dungeon from anywhere in the game), as well as battlegrounds. Sure you can do dailies and farm materials faster, but I think the time saved does not equal 5,000 more gold more earned except over a very long period of time.
-Crafted gear. I have found that just playing the game will improve your gear over time. The way regeants are distributed and market-priced make them much more expensive than the benefit they provide. Pay thousands of gold for a top level item that in reality improves your overall stats by less than 1%? No thank you.
-Vanity items. Personally I have no desire to collect mounts and pets and toys. To each their own.
I basically follow my super secret gold guide I mentioned above. Any BOE items I get I usually disenchant and sell the mats or scrolls. I occasionally do a gem transmute and AH the gem, but I gave up on tailoring cooldowns (too much travel, not fun at all). I also made two large killings:
-Introduction of inscription. I hoarded herbs cheap from the AH and sold thousands of them in one day for many, many thousands of gold.
-Introduction of epic gems. I bought up titanium ore cheap over a couple months and sold it back and made thousands of gold.
Other than that, I don't 'farm'. I pick herbs in Wintergrasp if I notice them. All my alts have gathering professions, and I gather as I level. I haven't done a single non-dungeon/non-pvp daily quest at the level cap since I got the crusader title. If I need some materials, herbs etc. I am more likely to head to the auction house than go out searching for it.
I have about 15,000 gold across all my characters, mostly on my bank alt. All of my level 80 characters have flying skill and cold weather flying. On my most active characters I have epic gems and decent enchants and maxed (or almost maxed) professions. My druid, my 'main' even has epic flight. Most of my 80s have dual spec. I hope that doesn't sounds like bragging, I know many players have much more or are even at the 'cap' of 200,000 gold. I'm just trying to show I am putting out money pretty regularly and yet I have a decent amount in the bank.
Granted, I am probably above the average for the amount of time I play (20 hours a week or more) but only a very small portion of that is spent on the activity of 'making money'. I just play the game, and from that I have more than enough money to cover any expense I may have.
The whole point of this is I see 'gold-making secrets!' and 'Guides to making money'. I get annoying whispers in-game where I can buy gold with real money. I also see guides that tell you how to become the Wal-mart of your server by mass-producing glyphs (which only requires a ton of seed money, multiple alts, several addons to setup and hours a day spent posting or retrieving thousands of auctions, part of which can be done AFK, but still it doesn't sound fun at all). It all makes no sense to me, as I just play the game and never run out of gold.
Perhaps my style of play is wildly different or not in synch with the majority of WOW players, but all I do is level alts, run dungeons, pvp, and raid, hold my own in a group and play to my satisfaction and enjoyment most of the time.
Is this desire for gold the product of our commercial society? No gold=no success? Is it related to people wanting fast gold to buy gear and perks? But why raid if you have the best gear already? Why do you need money for an epic mount? So you can use it to earn the money back?
I don't want to be negative, but is it because many players make poor decisions? Buying things impulsively, or vendoring things instead of auctioning them, not having any professions at all, etc. I would think that putting a small amount of effort and self-control consistently (setting up an auction alt, not spending thousands of gold on gear you will replace soon, etc.) will benefit you greatly in the long run.
In my opinion, all the effort I see towards making gold would be much better spent just playing the game. Trust me, you'll have more than enough. And probably, a lot more fun, and a lot less stress, as well.
P.S. My rogue hit 80! And yes he has cold weather flying and dual spec...
