It the inequitable truth that gold is much like the spice in World of Warcraft. The gold must flow for the game economy to remain healthy. WoW economy operates on a constantly inflating fiat currency known as gold which is different from many trade based economies where resources (such as phat loot) have an intrinsic value for other resources (i.e. more phat loot). Since all loot binds to a character then there is little more to drive the economy than gold.
Gold itself comes from non-playable characters. Every PC in WoW is a sort of for-hire hero vigilante with a fistful of letters of marque that allow them to slay every evil-doer out there. These NPCs contain copper, silver, gold, and/or items that can traded to vendors which stack up gold. Quests (repeatable or not) also offer a secondary method for gold to enter the system. This gold is then moved either back into the game into meatsinks (such as mounts, reagents, vanity items, repairs, etc.) or moved through the auction house in exchange for goods.
See all of this amazing gold? Yeah, from farming herbs, doing dailies, and not spending any. Raiding too, of course.The basic financial infrastructure of WoW requires that adventurers are constantly farming gold while the very same adventurers spend their money back to NPCs in order to balance out inflation. If there wasn another outside variable, then every server of the same age would be about even in terms of what what and how much gold is in the system. Of course, the cabal of gold sellers add in the Y factor that involves pulling more gold into the markets while putting none of it back. This inflates prices, increases the amount of available gold, and makes each server like a separate country.
If you understand all of this then you should have a basic grasp of how money is made and how it is spent. The only question now is how to best capitalize on the system to get the gold following into your coffers instead of being in someone else pocket. That simple.Basic Gold Farming
Gold is armed?n four different ways: farming NPCs for drops that sell on the auction house, farming herbs/ore/skins/shards and selling them on the auction house, playing the auction house, or doing daily quests.
Let look at gathering first.Gathering & Professions
Gathering is a very simple way to get gold. You basically just need a flying mount, level 80, and time. Mount up and fly around gathering herbs or ore. Skinning requires the death of animals, which takes time, but involves little searching. Take these items and sell them on the auction house on Tuesday (when demand is the highest) for whatever the going rate is on your server.
Of course, there are tricks to get more money out of your resources. You can convert the resources into items with your professions and get more money out of them. Darkmoon Cards sell for a ton and require you to simply mill your gathered herbs and add in some parchment. Glyphs, especially in demand ones, can sell for 20-30 gold while selling the herbs would get you nowhere near that much.
Milling, prospecting, and nhancing? some resources can produce higher prices as well. For instance, a stack of 20 Goldclover can go for 15g. You can mill it and produce 8 pigment which might sell for 25g. You may also get a rare pigment that will sell for 15g by itself.
The only profession that can generate income is Engineering because the only BoE item anyone wants is the motorcycle. That thing takes so much to put into that it not worth the time to even try to sell.Farming NPCs
It is a method, but not a productive one. Some NPCs drop items that are needed for quests, that are van
