Getting Started

At its most basic, wealth is generated in World of Warcraft in one of three basic ways: selling things you acquire to vendors and/or other players, selling services to other players, or as rewards for accomplishing in game tasks. None of these should ever be dismissed out of hand and better ways to do each will be the topics of many columns to come.

Now, as far as getting started goes, you have a few very basic options.

If you're starting out with some wealth already, you're in a good position. This initial influx can come from one of several different sources: a patron may give you a little seed capital as a gift or a loan, you can acquire gold in exchange for real world money either directly from gold sellers (I advise against it, personally. It's against the Terms of Service and if you ever get busted, you pretty much forfeit your account.) or by purchasing a non-bound item from the Blizzard Store and selling it in-game for gold. At present, the only available item is the "Guardian Cub", but expect there to be more in the future. It's hard for a company to look "free money" in the face and say, "You know. We have enough of that. Let's never do this again." It's why Michael Bey movies keep getting made, despite the fact they are all CGI garbage.

But let's say you're starting fresh on a new server, not a friend to your name, with just a level 1 character and no inclination of "taking shortcuts", legitimate or otherwise. Acquiring that first gold coin may seem daunting, let alone getting a million of them.

Note that your server itself will play a huge factor in how you make your money. I don't necessarily mean PvP vs. PvE ones, but things that can be both easy to judge (is it a lower or higher population server? What time zone does it live in?) and more difficult (What faction 'dominates' the server or is it equal?). Roleplaying servers will have a much higher demand for pets, cosmetic armor, and other frill items.

I highly recommend that you create and level a second character other than your 'main' character a bit first. It will exist to farm you raw materials for either selling or for use on your main. Good choices for a farming character are druids, as harvesting in flight form can't be beaten; hunters, so that when a resource node is guarded, aggro can be pulled away by your pet while you harvest it; or warlocks, for the same reason as hunters.

Throughout the newbie tutorial, starter experience, or whatever you wish to call it, you will have opportunities to pick professions. Do this now and pick two gathering professions. Herbalism, mining, and skinning are all incredibly profitable and it is much more productive to start raising them immediately rather than having to waste time later revisiting lowbie zones searching for Peacebloom.

Hoard your harvests and any cloth that is found until you get to your first major city and sell it all on the auction house for just barely under the lowest competitor with 12 hour listings.

Go to bed, knowing in the morning you'll likely have your first gold coin or two.

Tomorrow: De-mystifying the Auction House.