Summer has begun!

The kids are out of school.

The zerg guilds are growing by leaps and bounds every day. (I’ve got a wee toon in one just for the entertainment of the Zerg Guild Drama)

Everywhere you go in the newbie areas, there’s a handful of school-aged players bouncing around, learning things about this game their folks finally let them gain or re-gain access to.

And of course, for those who are entrepreneurial in nature, there are boundless more selling opportunities in the Auction House, and I don’t know if it’s happened in your realm or not, but there’s enough buying and selling going on at any one time that I can mark up the low-priced things I regularly sell to prices two or three times what I’ve regularly sold them for, and they still sell.

I thank the Blood Elf areas for this, as while I don’t believe I came out of there very rich, the equipment that is rewarded from quests and is available with adequate reputation is superior to what the “old world” races would have come out with by level 20 if it weren’t for instances or buying equipment from the Auction House, which are both more expensive prepositions than standard questing.

Of course, I also thank the well-known behavior of most humans under the age of 20 whose description includes the words “money”, “pocket”, “burn” and “hole”. Yes! Give me your money! I already have enough cash to buy the level 70 flying mount training, although the cost for the Epic Flying Mount isn’t quite in the coffers yet, and of course, I have no toons less than 6 levels away from 70, either. Certainly by the time I get one to 70, I’m going to have no financial problems buying an Epic Flying Mount. Come back in 6 months to see, however!

Are you finding that you never have enough cash for skills, repairs and occasional new equipment buys on the Auction House?

This post is not for folks who have advanced past 60 - if you’re already past there, you’ve already realized these things and need more advanced Cash Generation strategies.

The Absolute Basics of making money in World of Warcraft at a low level include the following topics:

• Vendor Trash
• First Aid
• Gathering Professions
• Using the Auction House

Vendor Trash

This is your #1 way to earn money as a brand new player, and continues to be a reliable way to get cash for basic skills and repairs.

To make it easier to handle, consider adding a macro (link describes how to add an assist macro, this is the same thing) that sells all Grey items to a vendor at once:

/script for bag = 0,4,1 do for slot = 1, GetContainerNumSlots(bag), 1 do local name = GetContainerItemLink(bag,slot); if name and string.find(name,”ff9d9d9d”) then DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(”Selling “..name); UseContainerItem(bag,slot) end; end; end

The strategy is to pick up and sell every grey piece of “vendor trash” you can get from your forays, as the cash adds up (especially weapons, some of those grey weapons can sell for more than a gold each long before level 60).

If you’re trapped in a party (ie: dungeon) and fill up your inventory and can’t get to a vendor, get rid of grey armor first, keeping plate longer than mail or cloth. Keep all weapons as they sell better than armor. Consider picking up the WoWecon addon that tells you how much your grey item will vendor for so you can better decide what to toss and what to keep.

First Aid

Of course, we all know that training first aid from the linen, wool, silk and other cloths that you pick up as you adventure and kill humanoids… is free healing. That’s what bandages are - a quick heal when you’re beaten up.

But what folks don’t think about is that this free healing translates into lower general operating costs for your toon (especially if it’s pure DPS and cannot heal itself other than through potions and bandages and food and the likes) as she heads out into the world to take on quests and dungeons.

Free healing means one doesn’t need to purchase food, and one doesn’t need to rely on mobs dropping food.

Warriors and Rogues, especially, benefit from this, but even healing classes benefit on occasions where mana isn’t available for heals and they’re in a very vulnerable state from previous battles.

Gathering Professions

Professions are great, but until you’re higher level and until you have cash to buy materials, it’s best to stick with gathering professions instead of production ones.

Gathering professions include Herbalism, Mining and Skinning.

Since Herbalism and Mining use the same functionality to mark their presence on the minimap, it is recommended you take one of those and pick up Skinning as your second profession.

Fishing can also be considered a Gathering profession, especially since Oily Blackmouth, Deviate Fish and Firefin Snappers are used as ingredients in other popular recipes brewed by Alchemists and Cooks.

Using The Auction House

The Player Market will get you way more cash than the vendors ever will.

Sell everything that is Uncommon and up (green+) at the Auction House.

Figure out which Common (white) items sell by experimenting - those are Professions materials.

Sell all of your gathered ores/skins/herbs in the Auction House.

Summary

This article is meant to be a “starter” to help folks earn cash in Warcraft. From these habits, new ones will form, new opportunities will become apparent to those who keep their eyes open and look for them.

Cash on Warcraft is not difficult, especially if you’re a casual player who can’t play more than 5 hours a week. The fact that the game keeps going when you’re not there is one of the major reasons why cash is easy to obtain.

Good luck on your quest!