Thoughts on gold inflation and gold making as a new player

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Just wanted to share my thoughts/experience on the Classic WoW economy as a new player. (TL;DR below)

With the announcement of Classic TBC I finally decided re-subscribe to WoW a few weeks ago and prepare a Druid for the launch of the Dark Portal. However I knew about the state of Classic (I stayed up to date through the forums despite not playing at the time) and was worried about participating in such an over inflated economy as a completely new player.

Well, I’m level 45 on my Druid and I’ve currently got enough gold to afford my epic mount for when I hit level 60, and I believe this is due to the state of the economy and how inflated it is.

I haven’t been doing anything crazy to make that gold, just your standard herbalism and skinning gathering, playing of the auction house, figuring out what low level materials sells at a decent (albeit over-inflated) price for my profession, waiting for heavily undercut auctions to sell before putting up my auctions, etc.

And now my fears of participating in this game’s economy as a new player with no help from friends, where veteran players have thousands upon thousands of gold and stressing over being able to afford my mounts and abilities/skills have been alleviated.

I played this game 15 years ago, and back then I never would have made that amount of gold in that time frame, especially not before hitting level 60 anyway.

TL;DR - The over-inflated economy of Classic WoW has enabled me as a completely new player to earn a decent amount of gold before hitting level 60.

My experiences as a new player regarding the game’s economy has been interesting, as I always read on these forums about how bad over-inflation is, and they also reflected my thoughts on the matter prior to actually playing the game. Now my thoughts on it have shifted a bit to something more positive.

I’m curious to see if anyone else new to the game with no help from veteran players/friends has had a similar experience, let me know I’d like to hear it.

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yeah same thing for me, i got my 60% mount at around lvl 58, cause i spent 16 gold on an ardent custodian back when i was lvl 40 something. I thought getting the epic mount was like the end game, then i did an mc gkp and got 300 gold and from there i could buy everything and the epic mount became a possibility

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Inflation is good for the new player to afford fixed costs like mount training respeccing etc

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Why aren’t you buying them and relisting them?

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I do sometimes, but only when there’s a few auctions that are undercut, which isn’t too often on my server. When there’s undercut items there’s usually lots of them, so I just wait it out typically, that way I cut any potential losses myself if I were to purchase it all and re-list just to be undercut again soon after the fact.

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Some people on here have been saying stuff like this for awhile, if the economy is inflated and a plaguebloom costs 938g, you can pick a plaguebloom and get 938g, because the players are the means of production an inflated economy means nothing to anyone, if things are more expensive then the things you are farming are more expensive also. The “ruined” economy guys are mostly non classic players trying to add another argument to fresh servers

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I see what you mean, but I guess it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. It’s easy for me as a new player to make a bit of noobie gold selling lower level materials in an inflated economy and getting decent returns, but I could see it getting a bit tricky when you’re level 60 and you’re the one needing that 938g plaguebloom to prep for whatever content you’re doing.

Lucky for me tho I guess since I don’t necessarily care about level 60 content and don’t have any plans to partake in it as I’m really only interested in TBC.

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What do you need gold for really? Repairs, re-specs, mounts (2, a 60% and an Epic), some basic supplies. All that stuff is fixed cost because they are sold by vendors. Inflation makes it easier to acquire enough gold for those necessities. If you are upset because you can’t afford all the crap you have decided to collect, I don’t care.

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There seems to be a lot of reasons in Classic WoW. But the most obvious ones probably being boosting alts and bidding on raid gear (GDKP I believe it’s called). The latter I only just recently learned about from playing the game, kinda bizarre but it is what it is I guess and it seems to work for people. People might also be saving gold for their epic flyer in TBC.

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In classic gold has been pretty important for the meta gaming for raiding I’d say. People buy summons, buffs, general consumables, flasks, boosts, etc. Certain items, like edgemasters, went for thousands although I think those kind of items are on the decline now.

In TBC it should get better when a good portion of that meta dies out.

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While it’s a decent amount when you look at things like mount costs, or repairs and training, it’s really not a lot when you look at leveling professions or trying to buy gear from the AH.

I took a year off and am trying to level enchanting on my druid. The cost of materials are quite high, and in order to level enchanting without tons of farming, I’d need tons of gold.

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So do tons of farming - part of the rpg component of the game.

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You’re missing the point.

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No. Actually you are. People can choose to rush to the so-called endgame by buying boosts, mats, pots etc. But it is precisely this style of play that makes the game tasteless. Content is consumed rather than enjoyed and savored. People do it of course. That is their right. But I think it is a sad day when Blizzard decides to accommodate their demands for easier and cheaper stuff.

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The point being inflation makes things cost more… it’s basic economics. I wasn’t talking about boosts or “rushing” to the endgame… But okay.

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So what costs more? 2 mounts? No. Repairs? No. Taxi flights? No. Training? No. Basically nothing you need or can’t otherwise acquire through hard, time consuming effort.

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Did you even read anything in my original response?

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Of course I did. You are just a whiner because things take time to acquire if you can’t afford to buy them on the AH. Leveling a profession, you likely need alts to farm what you need. Get to it. That’s what makes this Classic game so beautiful.

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Time is money, friend.

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I suspect you’re going to have a tough life. Good luck to ya, man.

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