The Auction house is where the most profit potential is in Warcraft. The reason for this is that in the Auction house there is a lot of price variability. One day Titanium Steel is 150G a bar, the next it’s 160g a bar (or 130g).

So it’s the variations that give you the player the opportunity to make and lose Warcraft gold. Selling to the NPC vendors that are dotted around the place does not offer variability. The prices they charge and buy for are fixed. SO if you have uncommon loot or decent crafting materials then these NPC vendors will not offer the best return for your efforts

Playing the market in the auction house requires that you first do some research, and collect some data. You need to know if a bargain is as good as it seems, or if you could get more profit for the items you are selling.

The first step would be to download and install Auctioneer. An addon you can get from Curse.com. This has a scan function that records every asking price for every item at auction. Before you start your career as a floor trader, spend a few days running the scan once a day to collect good data. Carry on powerleveling until you have about ten scans worth of data.

If you run this scan once a day (or once every two days) until you have run it about 10 times, you will have a good idea of what people are asking for certain items.

Once the scans are complete, Auctioneer will have worked out the average asking price for every item if found. When you open the auction house GUI you will now see a percentage displayed on the right. This is the ratio of that items asking price to the average that auctioneer has found in its scans. 150% means it’s 50% over the average asking price, whereas 50% means it’s half the average asking price.

Using this detail, you can make decisions on what to buy and sell and more importantly when. But low and sell high. It works in Warcraft as well as the real world

There are some huge shortcomings with auctioneer in the long run though.

As I mentioned above, it records the asking price. Not the selling price, it doesn’t even know whether the item sold at all. People can ask whatever price they want at auction. If you’ve seen a piece of wool cloth or similar on for 10,000g (it happens all the time) then this figure will massively increase the average that Auctioneer thinks Wool cloth is worth. It won’t have sold of course (at least not to someone who was keeping within the ToS and actually wanted it) People do this to either move vast amount of gold around, or in the hope that someone accidentally clicks on the item and buys it. The result is the same. Auctioneer’s average asking price gets completely skewed with rogue data.

What should be of more concern though is that the value of items changes over time. New items cost more, and then lose value over time. Blizzard increase and decrease the drop rates of certain things with every patch. A rare expensive trinket you have suddenly becomes very common and its value can plummet. Blizzard also change the stat values and level requirements of ingredients, weapons, armour and recopies all the time. This has a pretty quick effect on the value. If you are holding stock you could be wiped out very quickly.

Auctioneer is a great tool to start with, but it is just a start. It’s not the holy grail of gold making in Warcraft. If you want to be a World of Warcraft Gold Generator then you will need auctioneer, but you will also need a lot more besides.

Find out how to really dominate the Warcraft Gold market with our free guide. Visit Free WoW Guide Blog to download it. If you just want to comment on this or any other post visit the Warcraft Information Exchange

It is easy when deciding which race to play in Warcraft, to forget that there are some decisions that only really show themselves later in the game. How many people, when choosing the race they want to play, consider that they are initially stuck with the specific mount that that race rides once they get to level 20? It may only be when the letter from your mount trainer arrives in the post-box that you consider mounts at all.

The apprentice level mount in Warcraft makes travelling 60% faster, speeding up leveling and questing as a result. But what if you don’t like your races’ mount?

Firstly, there is no difference in the performance of mounts. Basic apprentice mounts offer a 60% speed increase regardless of type. However, Sabres and Wolves are very popular. So what do you do if you’re not a Night Elf of an Orc and you want another races mount?

Firstly, you can’t own a mount from the other faction. Alliance characters cannot have a Horde mount and vice versa. The good news is you can have any mount from your own faction.

Assuming the mount you want is from your faction, the condition you need to meet is to be exalted with the race whose mount it is. Outside of PvP there are two standard ways of going about this.

The cheapest way is to do all the quests you can find for that faction. If you are level 20 or higher, go to the starting zone for the faction whose mount you want and complete all the easy quests. They won’t give you a lot of experience (if any) but they will yield plenty of faction reputation.

At level 40 you have the option of helping your adopted race’s war efforts by handing in cloth to the quartermaster. Wool then silk followed by vast quantities of the higher level cloths. Each stack of 60 will bring a slight reputation increase. Take note, to get from friendly to exalted will take thousands of cloth pieces.

Keep going, until you get exalted status, then off to the mount trainer for that race and they will let you train and buy their mount. Good luck

The best hints and tips are at the Warcraft Information Exchange To download our free Warcraft guides covering leveling, gold making and professions click on the Free WoW Guide Blog

Long term players may well have become aware of changes in the way Warcraft’s economy is working over the past fifteen months or so. The progression of wealth alongside character progression and profession is now completely out of balance.

The system is being swayed by the huge numbers of level 80 characters on most servers.

My situation is not unique. I have 16 level 80 characters (I level characters up by multiboxing 5 at a time) That may seem a lot, but I know several guild buddies who have three of four level 80′s levelled the normal way – and often a level 80 Death Knight as well.

But I still start new toons, and this follows a pattern.

Well, I do this from time to time. Just to see what a new combination works like. Then, once I have got to level 30 or 40 I might look at the professions. Generally, like most people with a stable of level 80 characters -I just buy the materials to level my profession up to say 225. Spending whatever is required to buy the ingredients and reagents on the way.

However, at some point down the line I get bored of the characters.

Most of the time I stop. Never buying the mid range ingredients I need to level my profession. Sometimes even deleting the ‘toon to make space on the server for another. I won’t learn though. Chances are that I will repeat the whole process in the future, and buy my way up to a certain point with another alt later.

But the game is becoming unbalanced. Crafting is almost a waste of time the items are not bought, and return no value for your time and effort what-so-ever. Whereas low level gathering makes you a mass of gold. I think we should prepare for an “all change” in professions.

With Cataclysm, I expect the Warcraft economy to change in the following ways;

Crafting professions will be overhauled. Items at low level will be tweaked to make them more attractive to buy. They will cost more to make, but the good ones will offer more than one skill point towards the crafters profession.

New huge gold sinks will be added. The biggest gold sinks ever. It is rumoured that there will be a skill needed to fly across the ashen wastes of Azeroth, and that might set you back between 5000g and 10000g. New speed perks for flight will also cost a fortune. More than your epic cost in the first place.

Archaeology will provide ingredients to “boost” existing items. Either with a stat increase or with a fundamental change to the way the item is crafted

The vendored consumables for levels 81 to 85 will cost a lot more. Not just the sort of jump we had with Wrath of the Lich King – but a huge increase in cost for food and drink, ammo etc.

The game will be altered in such a way as to make each characters “right of passage” from 81-85 unique. We multi boxers may well come across obstacles which mean we are forced to split our parties up for the duration of levelling.

Blizzard has the choice to either totally revamp the economy of Warcraft, or at some point in the future get rid of the idea of an in game economy altogether. The current system is uneven and is getting more out of kilter by the day. The laws of supply and demand have become unbalanced in a way that would not happen in the real world.

Luckily for those of us who enjoy the professions and economic parts of the game, Blizzard seem to have noticed this, and are putting some efforts into getting it right. If it fails however, then perhaps 5.0 will be the end of in game crafting and a proper economy altogether.

For more Warcraft news, and access to our free downloadable guides For the goldblog, click here For the best Warcraft gold guide avaialable then try The Warcraft Advanced Gold Guide

Everyone who plays Warcraft is on the look out for the perfect World of Warcraft gold generator. A system that will bring them in as much online currency as they want without the need for gold farming.

After hours of gold farming, you might be tempted to buy gold through one of the many adverts you see online offering cheap gold. Be warned, Blizzard take a dim view of gold trading in Warcraft. The first time they spot you may be suspended from the game. A further breach of the rules will see your accent banned for good.

Players continue to work the hard way. Gold farming. Perhaps they have given up for that elusive search for the World of Warcraft gold generator, a system that works “in the background” and with minimal input. If you are powerleveling however, the need to continually update your equipment soon becomes acute. Power leveling is perhaps the main reason why people fall behind with professions and equipment, then find they need to get WoW gold fast to catch up.

But hold on a moment, there are systems that work, systems that get under the hood of your Warcraft server. Not gold farming tips, but market tips. Systems that get “under the hood” of your servers economy and reveal how you can leverage profit with minimum effort.

Take a moment and think how people make money in the real world, and then compare this to how someone might become a World of Warcraft gold generator. Buying cheap gold is not the answer, and endless farming and grinding is both boring and not that profitable. Ideally you want to be the professional, not the labourer. Just like the real world. It’s those who know how currency works and moves who make the most.

So don’t try gold farming, It’s a slow and boring way to make World of Warcraft gold. The best way is using market driven methods. Also bear in mind that the market and the tools change as Blizzard update the game. The method needs to change as well. An old gold making system will either be very inefficient, or not work at all

Of course the very best systems allow you to be powerleveling and making as much online currency as you need at the same time. This might seem a very hard balance to find, but with sound advice and following a good gold making system, then this is perfectly possible.

To read more about making Warcraft Gold in the most effective way visit the Free WoW Guide Blog. For the best gold guide around and read more then go straight to The Warcraft Advanced Gold Guide

Making Warcraft gold while playing can be a tricky business. Balancing the need to play the game, with the need to make gold is the hard bit.

Using the auction house is a good idea as far as gold making goes. Here, you leverage your skills rather than your time to make the gold you need

I have just read of a system that uses primarily cross market trading to make gold. That’s comparing the Horde price for any given item with those at Alliance auction houses. You then buy from the cheaper, transfer to another character of the opposite faction (via the neutral auction house) and sell at the market where the price is higher.

Sounds good? Hold on though. There are one or two very big drawbacks with this. Before you consider doing this you need to be aware of them.

Firstly you cannot buy from yourself at an Auction house using a single Warcraft account. You cannot, for example, post an item with a Horde character at a neutral auction house, switch to an Alliance character and pick the item up to market it at the Alliance auction house. The system won’t let you.

You need a second account or a friend to assist you. A second account means actually paying Blizzard for two Warcraft accounts. Having a friend help you means splitting the profits, normally halving them. Not so profitable now is it?

That’s not the end of the problems though. Just buying massive amounts of cheap stock is not going to work straight away. You risk flooding the market, you need a large (and by large I mean several hundred spaces) areas of storage. Your own storage that no-one can steal from, then drip feed to market. Also, this is a common method used by far eastern gold farmers (who have many accounts). You need to be quick. Remember it costs gold to put items on at auction. Flooding the market will end up losing you gold very quickly.

Of course there is a place for cross faction trading. However, I think you should know about the major issues you will face if you are going to go down this route. You wouldn’t want to buy a gold guide and be told on page one “Now go and sign up for a second Warcraft account” now would you?

For a system that includes all the methods you need to dominate, without the need for a second account, then visit The Warcraft Advanced Gold Guide. Just want our famous free guides, then Free Warcraft Cataclysm Guides

For me, rolling a new character in Warcraft is something I approach with a mixture of both anticipation and a little anxiety.

Firstly, of course, there is the anticipation of the adventures ahead, mixed in with some little concern that I have done it so many times before that I might well lose interest.

It’s not that much of an issue though. I’m soon happy with the idea of the new possibilities the character will bring.

However, once I get to the main character rolling screen, I’m always reminded of one thing…

How dull and uninspired the preset character faces and styles are.

Humans in particular are a very weird looking bunch. The lack of real facial customization apart from the adornments of hair and piercing means they all end up looking pretty much the same. A look I would describe as “very 2005″.

Back in 2005, the limitations were excusable. Both the ability of computers to draw and render good facial expressions was more limited, then there was the issue of broadband speed being generally several factors slower than it is now, making the caching and uploading of many different facial designs an issue.

I’ve also heard people say that it’s all about the armour you have at level 80. I’ll counter that by saying that that’s all starting to seem a bit “samey” to me. Tier 9, Tier 10. Once you’ve seen two human Warlocks with BiS raiding gear, you’ve seen the lot.

The last couple of years have seen a lot of MMORPG’s that include a good amount of character customization. It seems that many have jumped on the idea that it is a real selling point of the game; I’m inclined to agree…Champions Online might have its faults, but the level of detail you can apply to making your avatar truly unique is astounding. This from a company with a fraction of the resources that Blizzard can bring to the table.

It would be nice if Blizzard gave us similar options for the world’s biggest online game wouldn’t it?

I’ve looked to Cataclysm details and trailers to see if it’s something that looks likely to be on the cards, sadly not at the moment.

Free Warcraft Guides ready to download. Or contribute to this discussion at the Warcraft Information Exchange

There are a lot of distractions on the way to getting a character to levelled in Warcraft, but here are five good reasons why you should prioritise this above everything else.

1 – All new content that is added is for level 80\’s. It\’s true. There is more content for a character at level 80 than provided by the entire levelling process, with more being.

2 – Full blown PvP in Northrend, and beyond. Sure you can PvP at lower level, but the experience at level cap, with the new vehicles and team play, as well as the fantastic battlegrounds makes this the very best place to PvP in the game.

3 – You will feel better. Seriously. The day a character \”pings\” 80 is a great feeling. You are no longer a novice; you can walk tall in the game.

4 – Did I forget to mention Cataclysm? While it is true everyone can roll a new character to see around the all new Azeroth, only level 80\’s will see all the great new content for levelling between 80 and 85. Blizzard are going out of there way to make every level a unique experience with the latest expansion. But of course it\’s only open if you are already at the current cap.

5 – Make gold. No matter what people tell you about getting gold, the whole process gets a lot easier when you have high level characters. Even doing a few quests for an hour will net you a couple of hundred gold pieces once you sell the stuff. Why go to all that hassle early in the game when all along just playing it properly, getting to level cap as quickly as possible was the best way to proceed?

From the outside it can seem like there are two goals. Getting to level cap, and getting super rich. At times they might even seem to take you in different directions. Take it from someone who has done it 16 times. Levelling up as efficiently as you can is the key to success in both areas of the game.

Good luck, and get to level 80 as quickly as you can!

For absolutely the best and fastest way to level in Warcraft, click to see s Zygor\’s levelling guide . Or for help in every aspect of the game, click here for our Free Warcraft Guides

Ok, it\’s here at last, 3.3.2 has opened. This is the last wing of the Icecrown Citadel. It has been reported today that some have completed this instance.

Barely a week since opening and some have completed the ten man content. This despite the limited attempts per week that guilds can try it. Frostwing? 10 Man? Done it!

Is that it then? Other guilds will follow in time. So a nine month wait for more content begins. Ok my lot have not finished yet, and it will be probably three weeks until we do, We\’ll then run it for another three or four weeks, taking us to say April at the outside. Then we are done. Game Over.

Cataclysm release dates are most optimistically put at fall 2010. October being the most touted date. That gives us instance guilds six months with nothing to do.

For me, I\’ll cancel my subscriptions and re-activate when there is something new to do. I\’m not a brilliant player, but I reckon I will have finished what the game has to offer a full six months before Cataclysm. If there is no progression to be made, I\’m out.

Does the idea of paying for six months counting your toes appeal to anyone? Ok there are (as people have pointed out to me) plenty of PvP achievements to get, as well us some standard PvE \”outdoor\” quests etc. But that is missing the point. Many (I hesistate to say the majority – but it might be) play more-or-less exclusively for the end game instances. Yes I know all about PvP , yes I know all about quests etc. But I won\’t log in day after day for these things. For me – and many others – It\’s high end instances or nothing.

Blizzard, a note for you. Have a patch 3.4, or release Cataclysm no later than June 2010. Having no instance content and progression for six months in a game whose very essence is constant progression is not going to work.

To comment on this, or just to download our now famous free Warcraft guides, go to the Warcraft Information Exchange If it\’s the best Warcraft gold making system you are after, then look at The Warcraft Advanced Gold Guide

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The recent news from Blizzard about the increased importance of guilds in came has bought some other great new features to the forefront.

For me this has been one area of WoW progression that has been lacking over the years. It\’s supposed to be a social game after all.

It\’s pretty fundamental. It\’s a massive overhaul in the way guilds work and the whole dynamic of social play. Though it\’s too early to be certain, it looks like very good news indeed.

On logging in after patch 4.0, the first thing you might notice is the new guild GUI. The old style guild communication is gone; this is a whole new system. A screen showing your guild achievements through the various instances is displayed, along with the new achievement point total. Yes guilds now have guild achievement points.

Guilds such as WoW Relentless and WoW Defiance will start to see the legendaries that they have managed to achieve are now displayed prominently in their guild tab, along with a guild news ticker (an in guild CSS feed) that will show all member the results of raids and events. Right down to individual loots and level ups.

I don\’t know about your guild, but in mine we have a small guild tax after each raid. It goes in the guild bank and is used for lower level members to get repairs or buy potions. It\’s a fair system, but it\’s still irksome. Well, know that will change. Guild talent points can be spent on \”loot bonus\” that will invisibly add a certain percentage to anything you loot, but transfer this extra straight to the guild bank.

The way guilds deal with professions is also due to change. Every member will have a permanent link to their profession in the guild tab for all other members to see (and link to if needed). No more shouts and whispers \”Can someone link me …\” It will all be there.

Guilds will even get achievements for progressing through professions including a grand achievement for having all professions maxxed out within the guild. Blizzard are taking social gaming and professions seriously. This has to be good news if WoW\’s ascent is to continue. These issues were top of my list of things that needed careful thought, and it\’s great to see that Blizzard are taking some real steps here.

So love all round for guilds here.

To see the Blizzcon 2009 video on this topic and add to the debate go to The Warcraft Blog. For the best gold guide currently available visit The Warcraft Advanced Gold Guide

It\’s a shame really, there I was with good rep with Booty Bay and the other Goblin strongholds, and it seems it may have all been for nothing. With the new Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm, the Goblins become a playable race for the horde.

Nothing… is the answer. The Horde Goblins are a schism of the main Goblin race. You will still find your favourite wide grinned cheeky chappies haggling and offering you a lift at all your favourite locations. Personally, I\’m glad about this. I have grown to like the Goblin style. It reminds me of \”CMOT Dibbler\” from Discworld.

So the reasoning behind this split is that a faction of Goblins has been made homeless by attacks from Deathwing (I knew he\’d be back). They have been driven to the Lost Isles and into the waiting and welcoming hands of the Horde.

The good news is that in keeping with the opening up of race restrictions, there are plenty of choices for Goblins. Warrior, Warlock, Shaman, Rogue, Priest, Mage and Hunter. The two spiritual classes of Paladin and Shaman are not included. A good choice here I think.

The Goblins though have been given a total rehaul. More detail, new animations, better textures, you name it. So although they will be recognisable as the Goblins we all know and love, they will be very much sharper in appearance.

As for racial abilities, the list reads;

Better Living Through Chemistry – 15 point Alchemy boost. Alchemy is the best crafting profession for gold making – mainly because what it makes is consumables. So this fits well with Goblin lore.

Pack Hobgoblin – Amazingly, this perk is the ability to call up a mobile bank and Auction house GUI in the field. To wheel and deal from wherever you are. For gold makers this is an absolutely great perk.

Rocket Barrage – Damage nearby opponents with a barrage of rockets (see, the clue is in the title) No news on cooldown or threat.

Rocket Jump – Akin to a Warriors charge, but as a racial talent. Useful for tanking

Time is Money – A pre calc 1% bonus to attack speed, both casting and melee. Pre cal in good, this means it benefits with every buff you add on top of it

It\’s hard to pigeon-hole Goblin stats as they stand. The alchemy boost (for potions) and Rocket Jump combined seem like tanking abilities. If the Rocket Barrage ability has a quick cooldown and generates threat then that is probably the best deal.

Goblins look great. They add real personality to the game, and with a wealth of new and exciting talents, it\’s a class I\’m really looking forward to playing.

Warcraft Cataclysm – all the latest information visit the Warcraft Information Exchange Or, to download our famous free guides then go straight to the Free WoW Guide Blog