Make Gold with Alchemy

Alchemy uses herbs to create flasks, potions and elixirs which are used by all players but especially raiders. Alchemists can also transmute certain materials into other materials (e.g. eight Saronite Bars turn into one Titanium Bar). When an alchemist reaches level 68 and an alchemy skill of 345 or greater, they can become a specialist. The three categories of specialists are called master of potions, master of elixirs and master of transmutation. When you create an item that's the same type as the specialty you've chosen, you have a chance to gain an addition 1-4 of that item. I went with master of transmutation because I have a miner and a jewelcrafter. So if I transmute one Cardinal Ruby, I have a chance of gaining 5. You can make gold with any of them but elixir mastery is probably the best.

The idea of making gold with alchemy is pretty straightforward. This is generally the best way:

1. Make sure you have an herbalist and you gather your own herbs to make maximum profit.
2. Become a master of elixirs and create flasks.
3. $$$ profit!

These are the prices of the most popular flasks in the auction house on my realm.
Flask of the Frost Wyrm = 400g/stack
Flask of Endless Rage = 540g/stack
Flask of Stoneblood = 360g/stack

The cost to buy all of the mats to create 20 Flask of Endless Rage is 272 gold, so you would still make profit, just a lot less. That price doesn't take into account the extra flasks that you would get since you are a master of elixirs, so it probably wouldn't cost you quite that much. I wouldn't recommend that you sell the flasks in a stack of 20, selling them individually and in stacks of 5 would be better. Don't put too many in at once though because it will flood the market.

A second way to earn gold with alchemy is by transmuting an epic gem every day. The materials for Transmute: Cardinal Ruby will cost you around 55-95 gold, but selling the Cardinal Ruby will usually get you 170+ g. If you have a miner you shouldn't need to buy the mats for it, and if you have a jewelcrafter you can cut the Cardinal Ruby to make 200+ gold. If your not going to use your Transmute: Cardinal Ruby cooldown, you can sell it in trade chat for around 30g.

If the price of Saronite Ore is low enough you can buy 16 of them, smelt them, and then Transmute: Titanium.On my server 1 Titanium Bar sells for 4g more than 20 Saronite Ore, so it's possible to make gold but the profit margin is so small that it's not really worth it.

The price of flasks and herbs fluctuates during the week, especially on popular raiding days. Watch the market and learn when it's most profitable for you to sell your flasks and make gold with alchemy.

Make WoW Gold by Fishing

Some people like to fish in WoW, others find it incredibly mind numbing. In either case you can make gold from fishing. I fished non-stop for one hour in Wintergrasp and got the following:
Nettlefish= 82
Glacial Salmon= 61
Musselback Sculpin= 67
Succulent Clam Meat= 37
Siren's Tear= 2

Selling these items in the auction house came to a total of 450g. I could have made even more if I cooked the fish before selling them.

Cooked fish usually sells well in the auction house, especially on raid days. This is especially true of Fish Feasts, which on my realm sell for about 200 gold a stack. Remember that if you fish from a pool of fish in Northrend you have a chance to get this Sea Turtle mount.

Make 900+ Gold Per Hour Gathering Minerals and Herbs

One of the best ways to make WoW gold is to choose herbalism and mining as your primary professions. Below I'll show you what I gained after exactly one hour of gathering in different zones. I'll also add up the amount of gold earned from what I gathered. The zones I'll review are Icecrown, Sholazar Basin, The Storm Peaks and Wintergrasp. I used the Routes addon to follow the most efficient path, and I used this macro to automatically switch between tracking minerals and herbs. If you just want to see the results scroll down to the bottom of this article.

Icecrown

After following this route for one hour this is what I gathered:
Saronite Ore= 184
Titanium Ore= 22
Eternal Fire= 2, Eternal Air= 2, Eternal Earth= 7, Eternal Water= 2, Eternal Shadow= 4, Eternal Life= 7
Icethorn= 66
Lichbloom= 87
Frost Lotus= 2
Green Gems= 11, Blue Gems= 2

I wont post the breakdown for the gold calculation because that's a lot of numbers, but the total amount earned after selling everything in the auction house and underbidding everyone else by one copper was 917 gold.

Sholazar Basin

After one hour I collected the following:
Saronite Ore= 122
Titanium Ore= 4
Eternal Earth= 5, Eternal Shadow= 6, Eternal Life=6
Adder's Tongue= 164
Goldclover=68
Tiger Lily=52
Deadnettle=30
Frost Lotus=6
Green Gems= 4

Total amount earned was 599 gold.


The Storm Peaks

After an hour I gathered:
Saronite Ore= 80
Titanium Ore=14
Cobalt Ore= 16
Eternal Fire= 1, Eternal Earth= 2, Eternal Water= 1, Eternal Shadow= 1, Eternal Life=5
Icethorn= 108
Lichbloom= 80
Frost Lotus= 6
Green Gems= 4, Blue Gems= 2

Total amount earned was 675 gold.

Wintergrasp

After an hour I gained:
Saronite Ore= 160
Titanium Ore= 23
Eternal Fire= 2, Eternal Air= 2, Eternal Earth= 4, Eternal Water= 1, Eternal Shadow= 5, Eternal Life=2
Icethorn= 71
Lichbloom= 44
Frost Lotus= 4
Goldclover= 49
Tiger Lily= 20
Talandra's Rose= 20
Deadnettle= 6
Green Gems= 11, Blue Gems=1

The total amount earned was 922 gold.


Icecrown and Wintergrasp are the two best places to farm minerals and herbs. Choose whichever zone you enjoy most, or the one that is farmed less on your realm. After an hour you will gain at least 900+ gold. Keep in mind that the materials you collect can be used to make far more gold if you use them to craft other things rather than selling them directly. For easy comparison though, I showed the amount earned after selling the herbs/ore in the auction house.

The herbs can be used to create flasks and potions, or milled for inks. The ore can be prospected for gems, or used to transmute into titanium. The Eternal Earth can be combined with uncut green gems to craft green quality rings to vendor if you have a jewelcrafter. See what earns you the most on your realm.

More Gold Making Opportunities from Patch 3.3.3

The demand for Saronite Ore has skyrocketed on my realm. There hasn't been more than 10 stacks in the auction house at one time for the last two days. I sold about 60 stacks at 22 gold a stack, up from the usual 13g a stack. This is great for miners to make some quick gold. To get the most saronite in the least amount of time read this article. I don't expect this to last very long, the price will probably rebound over the weekend, maybe even later today.

You can still get saronite at the usual cheap price from other players in trade chat. This provides another opportunity to make gold. It takes 16 Saronite Ore to create 1 Titanium bar with Transmute: Titanium. On my realm you can buy 16 Saronite Ore for 11.2gold from players in trade chat. The price of 1 Titanium Bar sells for 17 gold in the auction house.

Frozen Orbs are still in the auction house for 27g while Eternal Fire is 38g. This is because so many players are trying to sell their frozen orbs, that anyone that needs an Eternal Fire just buys a Frozen Orb because they are cheaper. So at least on my realm, Eternal Fire isn't selling very well at all. The economy on your realm will be a little different but probably similar.

Gold Making Opportunities from Patch 3.3.3

Now that patch 3.3.3 is here, there will be some changes to the WoW economy. A lot of people were hoarding frozen orbs in the days prior to the patch because now they can be exchanged for one Eternal Fire or Frost Lotus. Because of this you will see the price of frozen orbs rise (if they haven't already on your realm), and the price of eternal fire and frost lotus drop. If the prices drop too low then it might be beneficial for you to buy them up and then resell them for more gold once the price rebounds. Also keep an eye on whether or not frozen orbs start to sell for more than Eternal Fire or Frost Lotus so that you can just sell the frozen orbs directly instead of converting them first.

This patch is nice for engineers because now Pet Bombling and Lil' Smoky are bind on equip instead of bind on pickup. This should provide a steady stream of income for engineers for a while. The price of Core of Earth, Heart of Fire and Mithril Bars will probably increase, so even if you aren't an engineer you can still make some gold by farming these materials.

"Battlegrounds will no longer award Marks of Honor.

Players with existing Marks of Honor can still turn them in to their respective faction's quest givers, including individual marks for those who may have more marks for one Battleground than another."

Because of this change, players will have a lot of honor to spend when they turn in their marks of honor. Many players will probably use their honor to buy epic uncut gems, which means we could see the price of epic cuts drop. Increased demand from more players being online after a patch may offset the decrease in gem prices. Keep a close eye on your realms auction house to see where you can profit from patch 3.3.3.

Patch 3.3.3 Released

Today patch 3.3.3 was released on live servers. There are lots of changes in this patch but I'll highlight a few of them from the patch notes.

• The amount of Honor awarded for an Honorable Kill has been increased by 100% for characters of all levels. 
• The Random Battleground system has been added! Similar to the Random Dungeon system in the Dungeon Finder, players can now queue for a random Battleground.
• 
  
• Culling of Stratholme
• Players may now skip the initial introduction dialog to this dungeon once they have completed it at least once
  
•  Several raid buffs have had their ranges increased to 100 yards, up from 45 yards, to prevent select buffs from repeatedly getting applied and removed during highly mobile encounters. Some buffs, such as paladin auras, totems, shouts and Blood Pact are intentionally meant to have shorter ranges and remain unchanged.
• Frozo the Renowned has moved into the Dalaran Magus Commerce Exchange and will be trading your Frozen Orbs for various other trade goods.
• Runed Orbs: Recipes which require this item have had their material requirements significantly reduced.
• 
  
• Inscription - Most recipes that required 2 inks now only require 1.
• Auction House
• 
  
  
  
  • If the Auction House on a realm is unavailable for any reason, an alert will pop up informing players who attempt to access it.
  • Players can now Right-Click to place an item in the Auction frame.
  • Entire stacks of a specific item type can be placed in the Auction frame and several options have been added for choosing how to list auctions.
  • Stack Size: If a stack of items has been added to the Auction frame, players can select the size of the stack they wish to sell. If an invalid stack size is entered (i.e. a stack of 21 Saronite Ore), the Create Auction button will be grayed out.
  • Number of Stacks: In addition to selecting the size of a stack, players can select how many stacks of an item they wish to sell (i.e. if a player has a total of 43 Saronite Ore in the Auction frame, they can choose to list 2 stacks of 20, 4 stacks of 10, 8 stacks of 5, 43 stacks of 1, etc. If the number and amount of stacks listed results in a remainder, the left-over items will be placed back in the player's bags automatically).
  • Stack Size and Number of Stacks are linked mathematically so that altering the variables of one may automatically calculate the amount of the other (i.e. if a player puts 20 in the Stack Size field and 43 Saronite Ore are in the Auction frame, the Number of Stacks field will change to 2 by default. If a player only wishes to sell one stack of 20 Saronite Ore, the Number of Stacks field can be manually changed to 1).
  • Price: Players can now choose to input the price of an item Per Stack or Per Item by selecting either option from a pull-down. If Per Item is selected and a player is selling a stack of that item, the Auction House will multiply the selected Per Item price by the amount of that item in the stack. If Per Stack is selected, the player can enter the total price he or she wishes to charge for each stack of that item being listed.
  • Auction Post Completion Bar: If multiple items or stacks of items are being listed at once by a player, a Posting completion bar will appear showing the total progress of each individual auction being listed once the Create Auction button is selected. The greater the number of individual listings being made in a single press of the Create Auction button, the longer this process will take. Players can still browse the Auction House while the Posting completion bar is in progress, but moving around will interrupt the progress, similar to moving while attempting to create multiple bandages with First Aid. Just as with creating bandages, auctions that were completed prior to the character moving or otherwise canceling the action will successfully be listed.


Mining
• Titansteel Bar: Creating this item no longer results in a cooldown. If this ability is on cooldown when the patch is applied, players must wait for the cooldown to expire naturally before it is permanently removed.
Tailoring
• Glacial Bag: Creating this item now invokes a 7-day cooldown.
• The cooldown and location requirements have been removed from creating Moonshroud, Spellweave and Ebonweave. If any of these abilities are on cooldown when the patch is applied, players must wait for the cooldowns to expire naturally before they are permanently removed.

Patch 3.3.3 has quite a few changes and not surprisingly there is already a list of known issues which can be found here. With all of the changes to the professions and frozen orbs this patch will have a big effect on the economy. Ill be making a post soon on some of the economic changes that happen on my server, and how we will be able to benefit from them.

World Of Lordcraft ?!?

Well there's a new game out called World of Lordcraft (I use the term new loosely). It is currently in its open beta, which began on March 12th. It appears to be a slightly changed version of Evony, and it appears to be run by the same people. I first noticed the game after seeing an advertisement with the distinct style of an Evony ad that said "Come Play My Lord". My first question after trying it out was "Why haven't these people been sued by Blizzard yet?". My next question was "How much longer until these people are sued by Blizzard?". I'll quickly go over some things that I noticed.

First, the registration page is the same as Evony's registration page, which was ripped off from Runescape's registration page. The next thing I noticed is that on the login screen for World of Lordcraft, we see humans on horses carrying flags with the alliance symbol from WoW, and orcs carrying flags with the horde symbol from WoW.

When you create a character you have two factions to choose from, Alliance and Horde. The alliance consists of  humans, elfs and dwarfs. If you want to be on the horde side then you can create an orc, troll or tauren. The character creation screen also looks rather familiar.

Once you create your character you get to choose where you want to start. Some of the places you get to choose from are: The Barrens, Stranglethorn Vale, Dragonblight, Blasted Lands, Moonglade and Swamp of Sorrows. When looking at the world map in World of Lordcraft you occasionally see these images spread around in between players kingdoms.

There's an interesting post in the World of Lordcraft forums made by an admin that reads:

"Players have been discussing about the source of World of Lordcraft recently. We consider that a statement should be made here to clarify the issue.

    World of Lordcraft should be regarded as a fan game of WoW. All the creators and staff members of this game love WoW and we thank Blizzard for such a brilliant work. WoL is not a replica of WOW. WoW is a MMORPG while World of Lordcraft is only a browser game of building, strategy and simulation. They are totally not the same kind. All the artworks in World of Lordcraft are the original creations of our art team. However, some elements were similar to WoW and some other games. Likewise, WoW also borrowed some elements from Tolkien's novel. We hope that WoL can provide an interesting alternative for those players lacking time for WoW raids and arenas. Or you may also insert a few clicks between raids or wipes in WoW.

    We'd appreciate your support if you like World of Lordcraft and wish you have fun in the game."

 I'm sure Blizzard wouldn't mind having a "fan game of WoW" that used their copyrighted material if there was no money involved, but just like in Evony you can buy in-game currency for real cash. Another interesting thing to note is that World of Lordcrafts terms of service are almost 100% identical to Blizzards. The only things changed is World of Lordcraft replaced the word Blizzard with Thunderstorm Entertainment, Inc and added one section to the bottom which says there are no refunds for the digital items you purchase from them. If you want to compare the two ToS here are the links.

http://www.worldoflordcraft.com/cs/Terms.html

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html

My review of World of Lordcraft would be that it is Evony, except it decided to copy some of the artwork and lore from Blizzard Entertainment. It then decided to claim that everything it copied is owned by Thunderstorm Entertainment (notice the similarity between Blizzard Entertainment and Thunderstorm Entertainment).

In conclusion, /facepalm

Make Gold with the Saronite Shuffle

The act of buying Saronite Ore and then prospecting it to make gold is often affectionately referred to as the saronite shuffle. This technique has been around for a long time but you can still make gold using it. When you prospect saronite ore you have a chance of getting 1-2 green gems and/or 1-2 rare blue gems. There are a lot of things that you can do with these gems. The simplest thing you can do is cut the gems you get from prospecting and then sell them in the auction house. If you get just one rare gem then you've probably covered the cost of the stack of saronite and the rest will be pure profit.
You can use the Sun Crystal, Bloodstone, Chalcedony and Huge Citrine to craft Bloodstone Band, Sun Rock Ring, Crystal Chalcedony Amulet and Crystal Citrine Necklace if you have 2 Crystallized Earths. I go into more detail about this technique here.

You can disenchant the rings/necklaces you made and then sell the materials in the auction house. If you have an enchanter then you can use these mats to make scrolls of enchants and sell those. The great thing is that scrolls and enchanting materials have no auction house deposit fee. This means even if you don't sell them you take no losses.

You can use a Bloodstone, Chalcedony and Eternal Air to transmute an Skyflare Diamond if you have an alchemist. Likewise you can use a Dark Jade, Huge Citrine and Eternal Fire to transmute an Earthsiege Diamond. Leftover Chalcedony, Shadow Crystal and Dark Jade can be used to make your Icy Prism. 

Back about six months ago the best thing to do was craft the greens and then disenchant them to sell the mats. On most realms the price of Infinite Dust, Greater Cosmic Essence and Dreamshards have fallen so low that it might not be as profitable as selling cut gems or other things. You will have to check the auction house on your realm to see which method will be most profitable to you. The more professions you have available to you the most option you have.

Make Gold from Jewelcrafting and Green Gems

Also see Make Gold with the Saronite Shuffle to earn more gold with jewelcrafting.

This method of making WoW gold is very easy, you dont even need to leave the city. The basic idea is to buy green gems and eternals from the auction house, then craft them into something you can make gold with. This requires that you have access to a jewelcrafter. I make around 200 to 400 gold from this but it entirely depends on your realms economy. Here's what i did:

1. I bought 40 Eternal Earths at a price of 3.3 gold each.
2. Then i purchased a total of 200 Bloodstone, Chalcedony, Huge Citrine and Sun Crystals at 1.25gold each. Any combination of those gems will work.
3. I then created a combination of Crystal Citrine Necklaces, Sun Rock Rings, Crystal Chalcedony Amulets and Bloodstone Bands.
   

Once you have made the items there are a few things you can do with them to make gold. What I did was just sell them to a vender. The cost of buying the eternals and gems from the auction house to make 200 rings/necklaces cost me 382 gold. From selling each item for 3.14g I made 628 gold. That's a profit of  246g, or 1.23g each.

Another option you have is to disenchant the items, and then sell the materials you get. You will primarily recieve Infinite Dust from disenchanting these, as well as the occasional Lesser Cosmic Essence and Small Dream Shard.

A third technique is to just sell the item in the auction house. You will need to check the auction house to see if you can make any profit by doing this. Keep in mind that if you chose to sell the enchanting materials or the items in the auction house, you shouldn't post too many at once as it will flood the market. This will result in lower demand and will force down the price of the items.

Make WoW Gold from Cooking

Having level 450 cooking can be convenient as well as profitable. You can make 400 to 600 gold per hour by cooking. The first thing is to remember to do your daily cooking quest each day. This will give you Northern Spices to cook with, and Dalaran Cooking Awards to buy more recipes or Northern Spices.  You also receive a bag of spices which usually contains a few Northern Spices or other goods. You can trade 1 Dalaran Cooking Award for 10 Northern Spices if you don't need to buy any of the recipes.

There is always demand for cooked food due to the need for well fed buffs in raids. A great place to start is by going to Sholazar Basin and klling the mammoths there. They will drop Chunk o' Mammoth which is used to cook Great Feasts and Mega Mammoth Meal. Be sure to pick up everything they drop and sell the grey items to a vendor. There are other good mobs to kill for meat, just find out what food sells best on your realm.

Some popular recipes are:
Worg Tartare
Hearty Rhino
Tender Shoveltusk Steak

Once you have gathered your meat, cook it using the Northern Spices you have been collecting from your cooking daily. The fewer spices that you have to buy from other players the better, since this will cut into your profit. The best time to post your food in the auction house is before scheduled raid times. You will have to figure out when this is as it varies across different realms.

If you also have fishing you can cook fish feasts which generally sell very well. Cooking usually doesn't make as much gold as mining or herbalism, but it can be great if you already have a bunch of minerals/herbs waiting to be bought.

WoW GearScore; Important or Useless

In 2009 players became obssessed with gearscore. Gearscore is a calculation primarily derived from the item level of a players gear. The two most common ways of finding a players gearscore is from an addon called GearScore, or wow-heroes.com. In the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, epic gear became much more common and easier to attain. Because of this, people sometimes found it more difficult to determine a players skill/experience. Gearscore was meant to me a kind of solution to that problem. Raid leaders could use the addon or look up players online and easily see how good their gear was.

The use of gearscore still causes controversy today. One complaint is that group leaders require players to have an unreasonably high gearscore to join. They do this for various reasons, like geting through old content faster or reducing wipes. Because of this, new players find it more difficult to get into groups because of the high expectations. Fortunately the Dungeon Finder tool introduced in patch 3.3.0 has helped players who actually need gear from older content get in groups.

Some players state that their skill is is enough to overcome their lack of gear. Others complain that gearscore can be inflated by wearing high ilvl gear that isnt useful to the player wearing it. On the official WoW forums there has been lot a lot of discussion on the issue, some players even suggesting that the GearScore addon should be banned.

The real problem isn't gearscore itself, but the people who use it unreasonably. Gearscore can't calculate a persons skill, but it is very helpful in determining what content someone should focus on. Just because someone has a very high gearscore doesnt mean that the person is skilled enough to fight the lich king. Also, someone with a very low gearscore isn't going to be able to contribute much to the raid, no matter how much skill they have.

Overall gearscore is is useful, despite the flaws in the system. When doing end game content, a certain quality of gear is required. If you are undergeared then the raid is carrying you through the content. Likewise you can have the best-in-slot items and still wipe the raid if you don't know what your doing.

Make Gold Using the Dungeon Finder

In patch 3.3.0  a new feature was introduced into the game called the Dungeon Finder. This new feature replaced the old Looking For Group system. It selects players to form a party from all servers in a battlegroup, so you don't need to form a group from your own realm. Before this feature was introduced, it could take a long time to find a full group to run dungeons.

Not only does the Dungeon Finder significantly decrease the amount of time spent looking for a group, it offers rewards for doing random dungeons. If you are level 80 and you complete a random heroic using the Dungeon Finder, you will be rewarded 26 gold 46 silver and 2 Emblems of Frost. Each subsequent time you run a random heroic you receive 13 gold 23 silver and 2 Emblems of Triumph . These rewards and less wasted time, on top of the gold you can already make from dungeons really adds up. If you want to maximize the gold you make from doing dungeons follow these tips.

• While waiting to enter the dungeon, make money by farming minerals/herbs/fish. You can teleport to the dungeon from anywhere so avoid standing around while the Dungeon Finder creates your group.
• Learn to tank or heal. You will be matched with a group very quickly if you are tanking or healing.
• Loot everything that you can from the trash mobs. Picking up all food, drinks and gray items will usually get you a few gold at least.

The Emblems of Triumph that you get are great for getting new tier 9 gear, but if you have no upgrades to get then you can make money with these as well. You can exchange one Emblem of Triumph for one Emblem of Conquest, then one Emblem of Conquest for one Emblem of Valor. With the Emblem of Valor you can buy bind on equip epic bracers. These can be traded or sold in the auction house, although the amount of gold you will get depends on your realms economy. If you convert your Emblems of Valor into Emblems of Heroism you can buy uncut epic gems.

• Blue, red and yellow gems cost 20 Emblems of Heroism each
• Orange, green and purple gems cost 10 Emblems of Heroism each.

Make WoW Gold from Mining and Herbalism Using Routes AddOn

I will show you how to maximize the amount of gold you make with mining and herbalism. This is one of the fastest and more reliable ways of making WoW gold. I'll give you the steps to setup an addon called Routes that will show you the most efficient path to take while farming herbs/ore. You can make even more gold if you have both mining and herbalism as your primary professions. For a macro that will allow you to track both herbs and minerals check out this article: Track Minerals and Herbs at the same time.

First you have to download and install these addons:

• GatherMate
• GatherMate_Data
• Routes

Once you have those, launch World of Warcraft and make sure that the addons will be loaded (you might have to check "Load out of date AddOns"). Once your in game follow these steps.
1. Type /gathermate
2. Double click "Import Data" and then "GatherMateData"
3. Choose "Overwrite" as the import style
4. Put a check mark in the sources you want to import (ea: Mining/Herbalism)
5. Click 'Import GatherMateData'

Now you can close that window and type /routes to create your first route.
6. Click "Add"
7. Name your route and press "Okay", then select the zone you want to create your route in
8. Make sure the "GatherMate" source has a check mark in it
9.Click "Create Route"

Now you have created your first route. Before you start farming minerals/herbs, we need to optimize the route to make it shorter and easier to follow.
10. Click on "Routes", then the zone you made your route in and then the name of the route you made. Now you will see the "Information" tab of this route.
11. Click on the "Optimize Route" tab, then press the "cluster" button. This will make all the nodes that are close together become one point. The route will go through this point and you will be close enough to see all of the nodes that are around that area
12. Hit the "Foreground" button. This will make the route a little shorter and more efficient. You can press "Foreground" repeatedly to continue reducing the length of the route.

That's all there is to it. When you are close enough to detect if there is a node at a spawn point, the nodes icon will become an empty circle on the minimap to allow you to see the default yellow dot. Now you have the most efficient route to take to make WoW gold from mining and herbalism.

Frozen Orb will be Greed Only in Patch 3.3.3

When patch 3.3.3 goes live, we will see some changes to Frozen Orbs. They will be used like a currency to buy crafting materials. A new NPC named Frozo the Renowned will be in the Dalaran Magus Exchange and will trade the following items for one Frozen Orb:

• Eternal Air
• Eternal Earth
• Eternal Fire
• Eternal Life
• Eternal Shadow
• Eternal Water
• Frost Lotus

You will also be able to buy the following for multiple frozen orbs:

• Runed Orb - Requires 4 Frozen Orbs
• Crusader Orb - Requires 6 Frozen Orbs
• Pattern: Frosty Flying Carpet - Requires 6 Frozen Orbs, but also for the purchaser to be a Tailor.

The Frosty Flying Carpet will require 425 tailoring skill and the materials to craft it will be 1 Ebonweave, 1 Spellweave, 1 Moonshroud and 4 Frozen Orbs.

Another welcome change upcoming in path 3.3.3 is that the roll for Frozen Orbs will be an automatic Greed roll. Now you won't have to worry about one person pressing need after the other four have already pressed greed. This information comes from a blue post made on the forums here. Keep in mind that all of this information is still on the public test realm, so it could change before the patch goes live. 

Make WoW Gold From Cross Faction Trading

A great way to make lots of WoW gold is by trading items from horde to alliance or Vice-versa. First we'll go through the steps of actually trading the items from one faction to the other. Unless you own two WoW accounts, you will need a friend to help you. This is because you cannot bid on your own auction, even if it's posted on another character. What you need to do is create a character on the opposing faction. If you need to transfer gold to the other character, you must travel to a neutral auction house. There is one in Booty Bay, Gadgetzan and Everlook.

Post a useless gray item for however much gold you want to transfer. Then buy it while on your main character, remember you need a friend or two accounts to do this. It is important to note that the neutral auction house takes a 15% cut of every transaction.

Now that you have some gold on the new character, check out the auction house in one of it's cities. If something it selling for less on one side than the other you could buy it, then transfer the item using the same method as you did to transfer gold. Make sure you buy your own item quickly before someone else does.

Another way to make wow gold by cross faction trading is to buy items that are available from a vendor on one faction, but not on the other. A good example of this is cooking recipes. Since the achievement system came out, some people try to get all the recipes they can, and they are willing to spend lots of gold if they have to.

The following cooking recipes can only be purchased by alliance players: Beer Basted Boar Ribs, Westfall Stew, Gooey Spider Cake, Crocolisk Gumbo, Redridge Goulash, Blood Sausage, Seasoned Wolf Kabob, Goretusk Liver Pie, and Murloc Fin Soup.

These cooking recipes can only be purchased by horde players: Crispy Bat Wing, Lynx Steak, Scorpid Surprise, Roasted Kodo Meat, Strider Stew, Heavy Crocolisk Stew, Crispy Lizard Tail, Hot Bat Bites, and Lion Chops.

Once you buy a cooking recipe from a vendor, it can be sold for considerably more to the other faction through the neutral auction house. For example, "Recipe: Crocolisk Gumbo" can be bought for only 16 silver in Stormwind, but can be sold for 20gold or more to the other faction. The prices vary for different realms and different times of the week.

These techniques to make WoW gold take practice to master. Some people are very successful at it, and others not so much. Now it's time for you to give it a try, and see how much gold you earn from cross faction trading!

Track Minerals and Herbs at the Same Time

Macros are great for a lot of things, but this is one of my favorites. You can make lots of gold by choosing to become both  a miner and herbalist. Some people don't do that because they find it annoying to switch back and forth between tracking minerals and herbs. I'll show you two macros. One will switch automatically once activated, and the other you have to click the macro button each time you want to switch.

First type "/m" to open the macro window, then click on "new". Choose an icon and a name for your macro and click "okay". Then, paste this code into the macro window: 

/run if not THO then local f,t,c=CreateFrame("Frame","THO"),1,0 f:SetScript("OnUpdate", function(_, e) c=c+e if c>3 then c=0 SetTracking(t) if t==1 then t=2 else t=1 end end end) THO:Hide() end
/run if THO:IsVisible() then THO:Hide() else THO:Show() end

  
Now just drag the macro icon to a free space on your actionbar. When you click on the macro it will begin to automatically switch between tracking minerals, and tracking herbs every three seconds. To stop the macro, simply click it again.


Here is the code for a different macro. For this one you will have to click it to manually switch the tracking mode.

/castsequence [nocombat] find herbs, find minerals

 That's all there is to it, now you can track minerals and herbs at the same time. Now go and make some gold.

Make WoW Gold

Do you want a to make a ton of gold per hour? Well it's possible, depending on what you consider a ton. You can make a reasonable amount by following some of the tips below. There are no "secrets" to making WoW gold, so there's no need to spend $40 on a guide that will tell you to go play the auction house or farm materials.

However, some ways to make WoW gold are more efficient than others.  I wont go into detail here but I'll list the basic ways of making gold in WoW

Gathering

The simplest way to make gold is by choosing a gathering profession. This is the easiest and cheapest way to make gold. You don't need to buy any materials to make gold by gathering, you just need a skinning knife or mining pick depending on what you choose. There are three gathering skills, mining, skinning and herbalism.

When you first start a new character is the best time to learn one or even two of these professions. You will be able to level the skills as you level your character, gathering things as you come across them while questing. Doing this will ensure that you always have enough gold for your training, and any gear or mounts that you want.

Another way of gathering is by fishing. There usually isn't as much gold to be made by doing this, but some higher level fish can sell for quite a bit.

Crafting

Crafting is taking raw materials and turning them into other goods using the crafting professions, and then selling the goods. The materials are either found from killing mobs (monsters) or from the three gathering professions in WoW. The professions used to craft items are:

• Alchemy -  uses herbs to create potions, flasks and elixirs.
• Blacksmithing - uses smelted ore to make mail and plate armor as well as weapons
• Leatherworking - uses hide from skinning to make leather and mail armor
• Enchanting - uses materials from disenchanting to make items better/increase stats
• Engineering - uses smelted ore to make guns, bullets and other gadgets
• Jewelcrafting -  uses ore and uncut gems to make rings, necklaces and cut gems
• Tailoring - uses cloth found on mobs to create cloth armor, bags and shirts
• Inscription -uses herbs to create glyphs and scrolls

Crafting can be quite profitable but if you don't gather the raw materials yourself you will have to buy them. Buying materials will reduce profit and increase risk but you can still earn a lot of gold this way once you understand your realms economy.

Farming

Farming items involves running an instance or killing certain mobs over and over for items to sell in the auction house. This method requires a lot of patience and sometimes luck. Depending on what it is your farming, it can involve a lot of risk. Check online to see what the drop chance is for the item you are farming.

If your looking for bind on equip gear, it can sometimes take a while to find a buyer. Also, the auction house deposit is higher on gear, and can take a chunk out of your profit if you have to post it multiple times before it sells.

Auction House Manipulation

This term can mean a few things. One way to make WoW gold is to buy low, sell high. It's simple, if you see something posted in the auction house for less than its worth, buy it and sell it for a higher price. A great way to buy something for less than it is worth is to looking for people selling things in trade chat. These players want to sell their items quickly, and can often be persuaded to sell their items below the auction house price.

Another technique is to control a portion of the market. Lets say you choose bold cardinal rubies. You have to buy every ruby listed in the auction house. You can then re-list a few of them in the auction house for more than they are worth. People are forced to buy from you because you have no competition. To maintain your control you will have to continue buying every auction of a bold cardinal ruby posted by other players.

In order for this to work you have to log into the game very often to check the auction house. It should also be noted that people aren't going to like you very much for doing this. An easy solution to that problem is to make a bank alt that you only use for posting items in the auction house only. I wouldn't recommend these last two methods until you have very good knowledge of the game and its economy, due to the high risk and high investment needed.

This is a very basic guide on how to make WoW gold and i will be posting more in depth articles soon.

New toys in patch 3.3.3

Soon we will have some new gadgets to add to our collection. When patch 3.3.3 goes live, Jepettoy Joybuzz from the Dalaran toy shop will sell 3 more toys.

A new companion called Blue Clockwork Rocket Bot will be sold for 50 gold. Blue Crashin' Trashin' Racer Controller will be available for 40 gold, and you can own your very own Tiny Blue Ragdoll for 10G.
Images from www.mmo-champion.com

PvP With a Blizzard Employee

Want to fight with a Blizzard employee in-game instead of arguing over the forums? Now is your chance. On March 11 some members from Blizzard's QA team will be logging on to the public test realm for some PvP action. Here's part of the post made by Ujumqin  on the test realm forums earlier:

"We will be hosting another PvP event on the US realm Anasterian tomorrow (3-11-2010) at 4:00PM PST! Queue for Random Battlegrounds for your shot to PvP with us! 

What: Random Battleground Finder
Who: Blizzard QA

• Horde - 'Blizzard' guild
• Alliance - 'Blizzard QA' guild

Place: US Server Anasterian (Those on Broxigar can participate by Queueing for a Random Battleground)
Time: 4:00PM PST
Date: 3/11/2010"
  
Make sure you transfer a character over to the PTR if you haven't already.