Of course one of the biggest goals in the game is to make money. There are three ways
to make money in the World of Warcraft: Trade skills, playing the auction market and
grinding enemies. For rogues you can add a forth: Pickpocket Money is used to fund
equipment and goods early/mid game, and cool status stuff later on.
Usually, any class can support itself with equipment and spells simply by selling items on
the open market and vendors. But to get to the neat stuff, like level 40 and 60 mounts,
rare equipment, and end-game gear, they’re going to need more gold than you acquire
by standard quest progession.
6.1 Auction House
As mentioned in the introduction, WoW has an auction house system located in
Gadgetzan, Ironforge (Alliance), and Orgrimmar (Horde)
If you have chosen mining as a profession, you want to constantly look for
ores, no matter which ones. They nearly always sell at a fraction of the
bar price. This will allow you to buy the ores and sell the bars for a
healthy profit.
Potions tend to sell fairly cheap as well. Keep an eye out for them - they
can often boost your stats quite well for an hour each at a very
reasonable price.
Buy on weekdays and sell on weekends. It’s not uncommon to have items
sell on Sundays for twice the amount they do on a Tuesday. You can use
this to your advantage by stocking up during the week and selling the
items again on weekends. The items best suited are usually higher level
trade skill resources – they sell in a sufficiently quantity and it’s easier to
keep track of the market prices. A good place to start is “mageweave”.
Also, on the same note, keep in mind that a level 20+ uncommon or
better items will sell better because of enchanters. Once an item hits 20
(and then again level 40) the item can be disenchanted for better
materials.
Always check the price of items before you sell them. If you sell too low,
you are getting gypped, if you sell too high, no one will buy your item.
Also be aware of what you’re selling. A plate which boosts intelligence is
usually not going to sell to other players. Due to the auction fees you are
usually better of selling those directly to the vendor.
If you have a skill such as transmuting materials, create a macro and
advertise the hell out of it while you play with the auction system.
Enchanters will find that they can’t sell through auction, so they have to
advertise.
Usually if you have tailoring, you have enchanting as a complimentary
skill. Check the market, if essences sell for more than tailored materials,
disenchant then sell the essences! The same goes for leatherworking,
the key is to sell below your skill. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ll have
materials of a lower level now and then, check to see what’s selling
better, raw materials or crafted goods.
The only white items that tend to sell are bags, ingredients, early level
shoulders (15-18) and early level hats (24-28).
Anything you craft at the beginning will be of a lower level than you. Bear
in mind you are asking for the price based on the level of the item. An
item that is sold to level 10s, won’t sell much, even if made by a level 20.
Sell those low level items made for skill gains directly to the vendor.
Weapons, chest, shoulder, head, and pants sell best in the auction
house. Always, always, always craft items that are in these categories
and don’t even bother with boots, arms, and wrists unless they are of
superior quality or better.
Check the Gadgetzan AH in the morning for cheap items ending soon.
You might be able to snatch a good deal since fewer people visit it and
especially in the early morning chances are high that you are the only
interested in a particular item. Resell the same item in your home-town
AH or in Gadgetzan on a weekend.
6.2 Grinding
Wow’s system is based around random loot tables, so most of the time you won’t need
to target a particular mob. Occasionally you can find a “phat lewt” mob that respawns
randomly every 8-24 hours that always drops good items, but these are few and far
between and you won’t normally see them. They really aren’t worth camping.
Grinding out items is boring, but can make you gold, especially when you reach around
level 50 and even poor drops can sell for 1 gold. The very best way is to do instances,
they have the very best drops and can earn the most experience. Of course higher level
characters should do higher level instances.
However, grinding gets boring sometimes, so you can also mix it up by doing some
lower level instances. Sure the rewards aren’t as good all the time, but they can yield
some good blue low-level items that you can sell for a few gold and there are some cool
scripted events that will reduce the boredom factor.
If you’re grinding, be sure it’s a creature that drops trade skill items. Blacksmiths can
hunt specific creatures who drop valuable gems, if you picked skinning you might want
to focus on beasts and for miners the various mines provide an excellent spot to make
money and experience at the same time. Herbalists should grind monsters in the open
or troll shamans who have the chance of dropping wildvine while tailors should generally
stick to humanoids.

6.3 Grouping in Instances
If you have a dedicated instance group, you can easily earn up to 7g in the late 20ies
with per Scarlet Monestary run, plus accumulate good items and amazing experience.
Blue instance drops almost always sell for gold (that is if they aren’t bind on pick up),
people in the auction house eat up blue items. Even basic poor drops in instances sell
for a great deal of money, 2-3g per bad drop in the upper-level (50+) instances.
Instance levels are listed above, and you should heed them. Even with many people
sharing the drops, instances are the fastest way to do everything in this game. On top of
that, they are scripted and fun!
6.4 Pickpocket
Rogues can pickpocket humanoids for up to 5 gold per hour at level 35 already. The trick
is to choose an instance that can be reset. That means you do an instance, zone out,
have a friend invite you to a group and zone back in. This will reset the instance and you
can pickpocket all mobs again. The Scarlet Monastery and especially the library is an
excellent choice. At level 38 one library run takes 10-12 minutes and yields around 1 – 2
gold in money and items. Do not kill anything – only pickpocket the mobs.
6.5 Being Cheap :-)
Last but not least … the amount you own not only depends on what you earn, but also
on what you spend. Being thrifty can save you a lot of money.
● A lot of new players will want to buy their mages/priests/warlocks the latest
equipment when, in reality, they don’t need to. Equipment will still be important,
but the increase in efficiency is by far not as large as for melee oriented classes.
● Mail classes have the problem of needing to be on the cutting edge of
equipment. The latest armor and weapons are constantly needed and often what
you can make is much lower than your level. You really can’t be cheap if you
wear mail armors, just skip a few levels.
● Make sure something you purchase has a real added value and do not equip
items that drop but provide only a minor improvement. You will be better off
selling it on the AH.
● Never buy for the buyout price unless it’s very close to the auction price. Let
someone else pay a large fee for the item if they really want it.