This is the anniversary of the 3rd year playing WoW by paying solely with in game gold.
I just wanted to preface this by saying it is very possible to play this game for free. Make sure you are a max level character and spend at least 2 hours a week farming for epic BoE’s or mounts. I also found you can make a lot of gold on the new patch materials and crafting reagents, they sell for a lot on the AH. I dedicated about 10 hours a month on getting gold, give or take an hour.
You can also make a ton by buy cheap crafting mats and making stuff with professions. Low level transmogs can sell for a ton so look it up. I use TSM add-on which helps a bunch also, it tells you how much items go for based on average sell value, and also about how many items are sold daily. The Undermine Journal website has also helped me find what is really desirable on the server and what people will pay for certain rare items.
Sometimes it’s quality over quantity and you can score big on just one item, other times its the big cloth or fish hauls that will make you a lot, you just have to find your niche in the market.
Once you make a decent sum of gold, you can start playing the AH, buying low and selling high. For manipulating the auction house, a must have add-on is Auctionator this add-on lets you search through the AH without the clutter of small stacks taking up the whole list, just use the ‘Buy’ tab in the AH interface.
Feel free to add your suggestion and tips,
Happy Hunting!
6 Likes
Or you can spend 2 hours minimum wage money to just buy a sub.
39 Likes
More like 1 and a half hours, depending on where you live.
2 Likes
I guess if you enjoy grinding for gold it’s worth you buying tokens from AH for your sub. But, I don’t mind spending $15 to play, it’s not that much and less than an hour of time lol.
2 Likes
Free to you maybe, but not totally free.
Someone is paying $20 for every token you use.
And still not totally free to you.
Instead of spending time in a real job, earning money to buy subscription, you are spending time in game farming gold.
Either way, you are spending time for money (real or virtual).
10 Likes
Not even-depending where you live I guess.
2 Likes
I think it’s nice that folks with extra time have the option to increase WoW’s time-played metrics and bottom line by getting someone else to pay $5 extra for their game time.
5 Likes
I’d rather work irl for 20 mins and not waste my time doing stuff I don’t enjoy. If you enjoy playing the market more power to you though. I know a lot of people who have done this in the past. Myself personally; I don’t even play 10 hours a week in total lol. I want to maximize doing the fun stuff I enjoy doing in the time I play 
6 Likes
I don’t have the patience for the setup that a system like this requires (I’ve looked into it, watched a few guides, one that stands out was Hazelnutty’s) and more importantly: I can never pick a lane when it comes to a market in WoW. Im all over the place. It’s bad. I am not paying for WoW right now, but slowly eating at a 4M gold nest egg.
That being said: OP, perhaps you could dispel some of the naysaying by explaining how much (actually, how little) time you spend a day NOWADAYS doing your TSM. As far as I understand it, it would have taken HOURS to set up, and now it takes you like 15-30 minutes every few days?
Same here, I mean it cost less then going to a movie.
1 Like
Yup same here, free for me and I don’t mind it 'cause I like making Gold. It’s really the only thing I do so hey!
I get others that don’t like doing that or whatever, that’s perfectly fine. I think OP meant well. Thanks for some small insight for those that might not be aware of where to get started if they are interested!
2 Likes
Thanks for the info OP. Im just starting thr game again after a long break. (Been back about 2 months now.)
Anyway I get a lot of satisfaction out of making gold in game. Its just one of those things. A lot of what youve posted are things ive seen/read or otherwise heard of before but I still appreciate it.
Im by no means rich in game, but im doing well and better every week as I get my stategies worked out.
OP said that he spends 8-12 a month actually farming for gold, which is hardly a lot. If he is able to generate enough gold, and kind enough to share his tips on it, more power to him.
1 Like
i don’t think simply paying for your sub is that impressive. i am very casual and do nothing specifically to farm for gold and make enough to cover my sub every month. if you just have some sort of reasonable AH use and do a mix of old and new content you’ll make that much accidentally. admittedly i don’t make tons extra, so i don’t buy tons of gold sink stuff in game.
10 Hours a month with in game gold vs 30 Minutes a month with real money
Ill take that second option. Cheers.
3 Likes
Ehhh… not exactly. There isn’t a finite amount of WoW tokens that’s being distributed. There’s an infinite amount, and the gold price is determined by demand.
When you sell a WoW token for gold, that particular WoW token is just gone forever. When you buy one from the AH, it generates one that can be redeemable for a month or bnet currency and they are both mostly independent systems from one another apart from how much they’re worth.
So like 100,000 people could redeem WoW tokens for gold, meanwhile 200,000 people could redeem gold for WoW tokens and vice versa, with the only thing affecting purchasing WoW tokens for months/bnet currency is just gold price.
TL:DR: You buying a WoW token for gold isn’t someone else’s $20.
Enjoy your part time game job that is saving you from getting a part time real job that pays money. You spend 10 hours of just farming, the time you spent at the auction house, buying and selling, I bet that is several more hours.
, it takes like one hour of work for a one month sub…
1 Like
Haven’t paid cash since the tokens came out in 2015.
Start of WoD had 86k on my Alliance server.
Start of Legion had 3 million.
Start of Bfa had 8.4 million.
Spent 6 million on deluxe bundles, store mounts & pets.
Now, almost 1 year into BfA, I’m back up to 5.3 million. (Just on the Alliance server)
Only thing I ever did was questing, gold missions, and run old raids now and then for mog gear.
Blizzard, even with the tightening of the gold flow, is still throwing gold at players for doing almost nothing in my experience.
*It’s kind of sad when you realize that in the early days of WoW, real life economists were studying the WoW economy to see how they could use it as a learning tool. Oh, Well…the bubble had to burst at some point.
Aside from the fact that this guy said 10 hours, around about, a month is good value for $20 … and that equates to $2 an hour…
How much total gold are you raking in for that 10 hours? You may be surpassing , say, a $40/hr job, which I would probably throw out as a good baseline.
2 Likes
Why would the OP care about the “not totally” free part when he’s not the one buying it? Is he supposed to feel guilty, maybe offer up some free gold in chat?
lmao nothing like a “well no sheet sherlock” comment in GD to get things rolling
/cheers!
1 Like