by Kessie Carroll

Created on: September 07, 2008   Last Updated: May 21, 2009

The second World of Warcraft expansion, The Wrath of the Lich King, made everyone frantic to earn more gold than ever. What with passenger mounts and their 20,000 gold price tag, earning gold has become a much-debated pastime among players.

Even before level 80, you need to know how to earn in-game money. When you're a measly level 30 and you need 45 gold to buy your mount ... how do you do that?

No matter your level, professions and the Auction House are your biggest friends. And at level 80, there are various items you can farm.

The Auction House

Auction everything. Sell items with their names in gray to vendors, but load up the auction house with white and green items. You'd be surprised at how many of them sell. Things like Sharp Claw and Large Fangs are ingredients in alchemy and jewelcrafting, and sometimes they're hard to come by.

Cloth always sells, whether it be linen cloth, silk or netherweave. Some cloth, like wool and mageweave, sell for higher amounts because the level bracket of monsters that drop them is narrower. The Northrend cloth, Frostweave, has a low drop rate, and yet professions require loads of it, making it one of the most expensive cloths in the game.

Always put armor and weapons up for auction at least once. If nobody buys them, sell them to a vendor. If you have the Enchanting profession, disenchant items after you've run them through the auction house. Enough items will return to keep you supplied with enchanting materials, and sometimes a green item sells for more money than its equivalent enchanting components. Check your market to find out.

There are addons like Auctioneer and Enchantrix to help you maximize your gold-making potential in World of Warcraft. But you can do fine without them ... you just have to read the market a little more carefully.

Professions

There are two kinds of professions in the game: gathering and crafting. Gathering skills let you collect items from certain nodes in the world. Crafting professions let you create things out of the materials you gather, like armor, weapons, and cool gadgets.

Your best bet in money-making is to pick up two gathering skills instead of crafting skills. Gathering skills are Skinning, Mining, and Herbalism. You might also consider picking up a gathering skill and Enchanting, since Enchanting turns unwanted armor and weapons into valuable dust and shards.

Skinning earns leather. Whenever you kill a beast, you can skin it. Killing higher level beasts earns you better types of leather,

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