Holiday Reflections from a Newb Huntard

     Recently Marcus Ty posted a thought provoking comment on Phat Lewts blog, "For players new to making gold and at a low level, a few minutes farming small eggs during the peak time of Winter Veil is a great strategy... Having accumulated several million gold over the years it's not something I do now, but for a level 10 player with little gold capital the strategy is still valid...As a blogger you sometimes have to think of new players starting out." This was in reference to a great post Phat Lewts did pointing out that the ever popular small egg farming strategy for Winter Veil only brings in an en estimated "1,801 gold per hour. Ouch." The whole conversation resonated with me though, because of a recent talk I had with an IRL friend, and rather than giving a long comment that was pretty tangential anyways, I thought I'd share a full length post with everyone.

     Ok, so, my buddy is a newb by all accounts and until last night at my going away party, I didn't know he even played WoW. I mentioned I was a blogger, and he told me that he has a lvl 63 hunter and a lvl 40 "Darni Paladin." Not sure I've ever /facepalmed that hard before.

Not at all how the conversation went, but dangit I love this video. #GetASporebat

 He's never been to Stormwind other than to learn how to ride faster or fly, and spends most of his time out in the world questing. As someone who visits a home city at least once or twice on each of his toons every day, this was both refreshing and eye opening. It's as if I've spent years dealing with LFR tanks who pull whole instances in greens, and LFR dps who are mind bogglingly miserable at their class, somehow doing only 1/3rd the dps I do when I autoattack, only to realize that a large portion of the WoW community doesn't even know what a raid is, let alone the LFR system. It forces you to take a step back and think about how great the game is when raiding, which we take so seriously, might actually be a minority of the population who plays. (BTW, if you're reading this buddy, don't worry, I'll get you leveled and geared! WOOOO!!!)

     Focusing on people like this, as Marcus Ty said, can be great. Despite how new my friend is to the game, he knows his class. He could recite his rotation from memory, taught me the difference between Call Pet can Revive Pet, AND all tanks will be glad to know that he knows how to turn off taunt.

And there was much rejoicing. Also, This list is awesome go check it out  

But back to the point, he's never had more than 500 gold on his account. If he read these blogs, went to Westfall and farmed eggs for 30 minutes, not even a full hour, he would have almost twice as much gold as he's ever had on his account since he's been playing. Sure, there are better ways to do it, but this is one very quick way to break his gold making paradigm. For anyone worried about, "What's the best way of making gold?" Stop. Take a breath, and just go through your professions. Make some flasks. Farm some ore. Run a dungeon. Put that stuff on the Auction House, and as that money comes in,  read a guide on how you could have done those things a smidge better.

     All in all, gold blogs and gold making would be pretty boring if we only paid attention to the maximum profit potential possible. There is a best Server-Profession-TimeofDay combination; Medium population enhancement professions on the first week a new raid is released are absolute cash cows, whereas gathering is also in high demand when a new expansion is released as everyone is leveling new professions. But if we all recommended the same thing, and that was to only play the game for one week out of the year, then that would be boring. Also, that's not why any of us play World of Warcraft. While we spend a lot of energy focusing on maximization, our driving force isn't REALLY to maximize gold per hour.

     We play because goldmaking is fun.

      So, today, I have a little holiday request for anyone reading. Go out and help a guildie. Don't give them gold, but teach them how to set up TradeSkillMaster. Or show them how to work the Auction House. Or run them through your favorite transmog dungeon. A little WoW charity for that one person in guild that is always complaining about never having enough money to buy that Sky Golem. Happy Holidays, everyone!


     Thanks for reading my little WoW blog! You can find me on Twitter Here, and on YouTube Here. I strongly suggest you download the TradeSkillMaster addon and the TheUndermineJournal GE addon. My brief setup guide is here, feel free to email or tweet any questions. And remember that the key to making gold in WoW is just to

Search. Craft. Post.
Every Day.

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