Day 1: When Did You Start Gold Making And What Triggered It?

Meet the reason for my long departure.  

 

 First I'd like to say that this post was inspired completely by Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival.

Subsequently, the carnival topic was inspired by Nev's 20 Days of Gold Making.

Big Props to both. It brought me out of blog retirement. 

 

 

 I realize the last time I put content on this site was in April of 2012. My son and second child was born April 20th and after the leave I took for family I just didn't get back into WoW. I received Diablo 3 for free so I played it for all of about a month and it just didn't have any more content I'd wish to repeat. Since my free time that didn't include feeding children, household duties, etc was pretty much nil I just took a hiatus until MoP came out. I've honestly struggled to find content in MoP I can consume in small enough bites to match my scheduling, but I've had fun with the Pet Battle system and dipping back into the economy. 

 

That is all for other blogs though, on with the topic! 

 

 

 When did you start Gold Making? 

 I did not consider myself a "Gold Maker" until Wrath of the Lich King came out. I consider a gold maker to be someone that logs time in the game for the intent of obtaining revenue or resources for the joy of the acquisition rather than for immediate consumption proposes (Flasks for the raid, etc). 

I had leveled a Shaman in late Burning Crusades with the Jewelcrafting profession, but never got it to Outlands level (expensive!) or used it for economic reasons. I was just in the lull of expansions and had not experienced the new Race / Profession Burning Crusades had added. This character would be the vehicle that would eventually drive me to gold cap, which I only momentarily maintained late Cataclysm.

 What Triggered It?

 I can take this question two ways - what triggered me to begin learning WoW markets and developing the mentality that separates the haves and have-nots in WoW?, or what triggered the push to be a full time Gold Maker?. I will answer both. 

The first real goal that prompted me to accumulate gold was wanting epic flight form on my druid, which was my first main character. In Burning Crusade epic flying was 5,000 gold and that was actually a goal then unlike now where you basically get that much from questing to level cap. After finishing all zones of questing I needed income and daily quests did not do it at that point as they were limited to how many you could do per day. My strategy was to farm my own herbs and make elixirs with my elixir-spec alchemist alt. It took me a month or more to gain the funds I needed, but the most important gain was the knowledge of markets (which ones sold fastest, in what stack sizes, etc) and that little enjoyment from getting the gold together. 

Toward the end of BC and the start of WOTLK I had been raiding and all the normal things players did at the time, and then my work schedule drastically changed. I couldn't attend raid nights regularly, drama among some in game friends was coming to a head, and I needed something to keep me interested in the game. There stepped in that little alt with Jewelcrafting and the gap it filled in my game enjoyment. Now, I only stepped out of WOTLK with maybe 40,000 gold to start Cata with, but it was an easy step from there to claim my market place once I had the broader understanding. 

 

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I would appreciate any feedback. You can reach me here in the comments, on Twitter @formerruling, and on my YouTube channel FormerRuling