Gold, Epic Mounts, and You!

Hail, comrades!  

With so many of you attaining level 80 recently, there seems to be much anticipation and anxiety about obtaining your Artisan Riding Training and your Epic Flying Mount!  Of course, the most prohibitive thing about getting either of these is the price, which is about 5,000g for the training and another 100g for the mount itself.  This amount of gold, I know, just seems so far out of reach.  But I am here to assure you, it is not!

What many fail to realize before reaching the level cap is that once you're there, the opportunities for you to earn gold multiply exponentially.  In fact, I too once thought Epic Flying was simply not attainable, until, little over a month of hitting level 80, I attained it!  And no cheats were needed; I didn't buy gold from hackers, or borrow from everyone who'd lend.  It was done the old fashioned way; by Playing the Game!


I'd like to share with you now some good Gold Earning tips that have worked for me in the past that got me my Epic Flyer, and several since.  Keep in mind as you read them that I am not a WoW-millionaire, nor do I advocate playing the game simply to amass huge quantities of gold.  As always, my interest is in Playing the Game, and it just so happens you can earn plenty of Gold by doing just that!

The biggest thing that happens for you when you hit 80, in terms of Earning Gold, is the dozens and dozens of Daily Quests that open up for you.  If they are not open to you yet, you still get to do the quests that lead to them, which in turn, earns you more gold!  In fact, since the Argent Tournament began, the number of Daily Quests has easily doubled!  Between the Tournament Grounds, the Sons of Hodir, The Shadow Vault, and Icecrown, both on the ground and in the Orgrim's Hammer, you can easily earn over 200g per day, just from doing these Dailies!  Combine these with the new LFG interface and Random Heroics, which also pay you, and you're well on your way!  

Do the rough math!  With 200g from Dailies plus another, let's say, 30g from random Heroics each day, you will have your Epic Flying within a month! And I promise you, you can probably earn much more by doing a couple extra dungeons, and maybe a couple extra quests!

Here are some other tips for earning gold:

1. Create a Bank Alt, (or as I call them, a Bank Peon)!  You have no idea how much time this saves, time that can be used farming herbs/ore, time spent questing, running instances etc!  Time spent running your play character to the AH or to Vendors or to the Bank is now yours once again!  It's easy to do, simply create a level 1 character and run him/her to a major city.  Put that character on your Main's friends list, and vice versa, and it makes mailing stuff much quicker.  Now, Any BoE's you find, materials you manage to gather, you can shoot right off to your Bank Alt between dungeons or quests, and then keep right on going!  Next time you login, login to your Bank Peon and Auction or Vendor the stuff! Using the Bank Peon to store things also helps a lot, since most of the time you may not be near a bank, but you will be near a mailbox! 
2. Loot/Sell Junk!  How many of you go to loot a dead enemy and find that most of the items are junk, all in grey?  How many of you just leave the junk on there, since you can't really use it and they're not worth that much anyway? Oh how wrong this sort of thinking is!  While it's true that junk items by themselves may not be worth much, but take a second and think about just how much junk you manage to find in an average play day.  It's a LOT.  And it adds up too!  So loot it all and sell it all.  You'll easily earn extra gold just from junk!  To save time, use the Auto-Loot setting in your Interface Options so that you don't have to click to loot.  Just loot and go.  It rocks!
3. Use the Auction House!  Some players will say that BoE Greens are great because they vendor for a lot, and most players simply vendor BoE Greens they can't use.  Well, they do vendor for more than regular junk, but they sell for a lot more on the AH!  While the Greens you find may be inferior to what you may have at level 80, for lots of players coming up, they are upgrades, ones they'll pay well for!  And now that you have a Bank Peon, it's no problem to send them right to him/her and make some quick gold.  Also, if you ever wonder how much you should charge for a Green Item, a good rule of thumb is 10x the Auction Fee.  So if, in order to auction the Frigid Cleaver of the Whale, the AH fee is 1g30s, then your buyout price should be 13g.  Simple, and worth a lot more than any Vendor will pay you!
4. Use your Professions!  How often do you see tradesmen advertising their skills in any major city?  Well, granted, not as often as stupid people spam, but it happens!  Locksmiths, Enchanters, Blacksmiths, Tailors, Scribes, these trades are regularly represented in Trade.  If you know some higher level stuff, then advertise it!  Or, you can keep an eye out for people looking for services, and answer them!  If your professions are for Gathering Skills, you can make even more money, since Everyone needs Gathered Mats.  Again, send your Stacks of Ore/Herbs/Skins/Cloth to your Bank Peon, and hit the AH next login!  You can also do this for stuff you make as well.  Bags, Flasks, Glyphs, Scrolls, Item Enhancements, and various Metal Rods are just a few relatively cheap Crafted Items that are always in demand, and sell well on the AH!

So there you have it, just a few tips on becoming a good earner in the game without having to sacrifice ridiculous amounts of gameplay time farming or playing the AH.  There are many different approaches to earning gold in game, but these are few I regularly use and they work for me!  Using these simple methods, I had my Epic Flyer within a month of hitting level 80!  So take heart, and go forth, to Fortune and Glory!!