This post was published 9 months 22 days ago which may make it out of date. This does not mean the information is wrong, or useless - it is a warning just in case!To find the follow up to this post, check out Is it all about the numbers? Conclusions.
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This week’s discussion post is about why we as ‘AH players’ try and make more gold than we need.
There are a lot of people out there who simply use the auction house to make gold that they need for ‘essentials’ like repairs, gems, enchants and the like.
Then there are others who simply want gold for vanity items, like the Chopper.
But then there are a few people who simply want more gold for no real reason at all – at least, not an obvious reason. The majority of ‘us’ are in this group, the people reading my blog, and other WoW Economy bloggers… but why do we do it? Obviously the above two reasons can factor in, especially at the start – yet is there more of a reason?
I’ll start the ball rolling by telling you my reasons, and it would be great if as many of you as possible could say why you do it, and expand on you reasoning if you want to.
For me, it’s not about raiding essentials as we currently aren’t raiding. It’s not about vanity items, as they don’t interest me at all any more.
Now it is simply for fun. I haven’t killed a mob in weeks – this game is now *all* about the AH and nothing else for me. Not sure how long this will be the case (maybe 3.3 will change it) but I’ve not even seen the new VoA boss or Onyxia on one of my own characters.
Nope, for now the Auction House is my ‘WoW’!
I’d love to hear all of your reasons, so…
Why do you make gold?
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The reason I make money on the AH is just for fun.
I was tired of PVP and hated raiding…
Now I play the auction house like a game of monopoly. It’s just fun for me. It has given the game something ‘new’ again.
For me, its all about hitting the cap.
I don’t like vanity pet, I see no use on a land 3 person mount (you can be sure I’ll buy a flying version though if it comes with the vendor on it). But even then, its use would be limited to my “leveling time” as once I hit the level cap, its all about ah-ing. (I stopped raiding soon after 3.1)
After 4 + years of grinding mats for items, thingymegubbins and various other shenanigans, I happened upon a webiste talking about making money, might have been Tarou’s. So I started dabbling. Selling first all the crap I had my bags which was plentiful. Then I levelled up JC on two chars for the gems bonuses. The costs of mats with that even whilst levelling mining on the same chars too was huge and the LIGHTBULB went – woop woop….kerching.
And I’ve been hooring myself for the last 2 months on the AH. And its now become fun and in a bizarre social way I’ve got to know more people in game due to generating a supply of farmers.
Damn good times so far and more ahead.
For me I don’t have the time to raid. I can hardly even level my characters up to 80. But i do have time to play the AH. Its nice just having the gold and being able to give it away or make loans to friends. Nothing like giving a family member 5k for an epic flyer just because you know you can make it back in a few weeks.
This simply means that there is more to this game (and any other MMO game for that matter) than just to go out and kill stuff for loot. Like crafting or playing WoW market. Unfortunately, this is where WoW limitation is very apparent. There is not a meaningful way for players like you to progress except for hoarding gold until you hit the cap. No option to invest your hard (hardly? :P) earned money into some WoW business for example. Or order killing of some faction leader for a tangible reward, organizing arena tournaments and sponsoring top fighters – the possibilities could be unlimited.
I go through phases in the game… when I get bored with one aspect, I’ll move to another. I have 8-classes at 80 and, after leveling, moved to raiding… that gets boring quickly for me. After this, I find ways to make money, be it the AH or some other avenue. That is the phase I’m in currently. I’ve capped two characters as of last week and am currently on a spending spree. Nothing like dumping 45k on 245 items for a fresh 80.
@Andrei I agree that more options should be open to people with lots of gold.
I have always thought housing would be amazing… it would have to have a practical use though, like storage space and things to buy like a forge ect. so you could craft in it.
Hmm. A couple of reasons.
- So that I never have to worry about making money again. I really hate doing dailies.
- So that I always have enough money; I’ve always been one of the richest people I know, and I love it because I don’t really have to think about dropping 5k for an epic flyer, for example, but I made my cash through questing and grinding, and learning to use the AH is the natural progression there.
- Because it’s fun, and it brings something ‘new’ to the game for me to learn about during a time when other areas of the game (*cough* PvE content *cough*) are pretty stagnant.
- Partially because I’ve actually met new people this way, crazy as it sounds. I had a really nice discussion with one of my competitors this evening, of all people.
- And the one reason we’re all thinking of but not admitting; it’s a lovely feeling when you open the mailbox and the gold comes pouring in ;)
Vel.
My reasons are pretty simple. I enjoy doing it and as I don’t rely on other players to do it I am not forced into a raiding schedule but can just log on whenever I want to do some posting and crafting and log off if I feel like doing it. It’s also the feeling of being able to buy anything I want without having to worry about the gold. Just a few weeks ago I bought myself epic flying for an alt, and I didn’t even care. Previously I would have considered it a huge purchase, but now it was just a pretty big gold loss but nothing serious.
It seems the most common reason, and one that almost every one who has posted so far has touched upon – is freedom.
Freedom to be able to buy what you want when you want.
Freedom to be on your own schedule, doing what you want when you want instead of being fixed to certain raid times.
Thank you all for your answers so far – please keep them coming!
Pushing for the gold cap was just morbid curiosity, but increasing my gold pile from excessive to ridiculous levels after that was a reaction to the advice being handed out by a few of the gold blogs. I disagreed with their tactics and the mentality behind it, so I went back to the AH to test my own theories against theirs. Many players seem more interested in how badly they can undercut each other over actually making any money, so it’s possible to make staggering profits of money off of their efforts.
I think the only reason I started working the AH, was that after reading so many blogs about it and seeing the results of others, I figured there’s no reason why I couldn’t do it with similar results. Also, it would be nice to just be able to get what I want, whenever I want, which is something I think most people would enjoy.
why?
cuz i can!
The AH is kinda like Ebay, which can also be addictive. I’m saving up for a Mechano Hog!
Most of my time is spent for arenas, I use the gold to buy out my low rolls in raids, offering someone 4-8k will easily nab any items i want and make the other person very happy. I can pug any raid I want and get most of the drops, no one even knows since it can be done in whispers. Everyone benefiets, a lot of people will say, “are you serious?” and take the money without even trying to haggle the price up because I can simply say. If anyone offers you more let me know….
I have no real reason for making gold. I have enough gold to last me a few expansions, and I don’t find it particularly fun… maybe it’s time to stop? :P
I blundered into Gold making when Inscription turned up. It started as out as simply “well I might as well give this new craft skill a go when it launches”. Making enough for an epic mount the first day and enough for a couple more by the end of the first weekend maintained my interest. When I then passed the 30-40K mark I figured maybe I should start taking it seriously.
My main focus is still raiding or the 10 man hardmode. Outside of that I can either level an alt, PvP, pug raids on another alt, or work the AH. I am so sick of leveling and dealing with pugs. I don’t have time to deal with pugs. So that leaves my time with the AH.
I can still hang out in vent and chat with people while I work the AH. That is why I spend so much free time doing it. Now that I am making gold, I am more focused on making more. I know if I keep going, I will hit the gold cap. For as well as I am doing, it would be silly of me to not reach it.
When I started earning gold I already had 10K. That 10K was enough to cover everything I wanted and didn’t already have. My first goal was 30K and I hit that so quick I had to keep going.
I think a lot of people are using the terms “gold” and “money” interchangeably here.
Do you remember before the Iron Curtain fell? If you lived behind it, and wanted Levi jeans or Camel cigarettes, you didn’t get them with your puny roubles or forints. No. They might have been good enough to get you milk and bread, but for the most desirable items, you needed a real currency. A hard currency: dollars or deutchmarks.
Gold in the World of Warcraft is just one form of currency, and it’s not the most useful, except while levelling. Once at level 80, though, the other currencies are much more useful, and gold is not convertible into these currencies, the most valuable of which are the emblems.
Given that this is the case, playing the auction house is really most useful while levelling. Once levelled, a character will easily earn as much gold as he needs while out trying to earn emblems.
What is our purpose in the World of Warcraft? I’m sure that you, like me, don’t really pay Blizzard for the pleasure of standing on a box between Auctioneer Jaxon and the mailbox outside the Auction House (great tip, carma12), buying and selling stuff in a non-convertible currency (by which I mean, a currency not convertible into the most desired currency in the game). Hitting the cap in this second-rate currency is simply not a goal I have. I don’t want to make more gold than I need, and frankly I think such a goal to be “moronic” to use the head-goblin’s term! I am using gold to get as quickly as I can to the point where I can start making hard currency, the currency that will buy me my Levi jeans: emblems.
Dàchéng´s last blog ..Mr. Micawber’s Transactions
I started making money for the challenge. It is nice to have money for whatever I want to buy, but I am cheap and don’t buy much and when I do I make myself gain the gold through questing/rewards/etc. without tapping into my bank alts cash. Now I am doing it for a different reason. I using my money to attempt to solo as many raids/instances I can. I plan to hopefully make it to heroic WotLK instances and will need plenty of gold for gear, glyphs, respecs, and repairs. Of course I hope to profit from doing this as well, so best case scenario I add to my pile of gold…eventually. For those interested I am tracking my adventures in my own blog http://dksolo.blogspot.com/.
As Sarainy pointed out, it is about freedom. I am able to buy everything I possibly want without ever having to resort buying gold from websites or farm myself to death. I’ve only farmed the icecrown dailies for the seals so i could buy BoA items for alts.
Making gold is a sort of mini-game in itself for me. I set my goal to reach 100k. I recently broke this and am still climbing but honestly I have no idea what to do with the gold. I bought my wife the motorbike, got myself the dalaran ring & 3-person tundra mount long ago, and some other nice BOE epics which I never regretted buying.
I think what really keeps me going is that I have this idea in my head that come Cataclysm, there will be an item(s) that i will have to shell out big bucks for. Perhaps a multi-passanger flying mount? Who knows. Better to be safe than sorry :-)
I started to play the AH-game because I was curious to see if I could make it. I did earn my first 1k gold, another 1k and after that I set goal like 10k, 20k, 30k and so on. When I did retch 20k it was the part I enjoyed most about wow. Now I have the freedom to powerlevel my alts profession and get them some good gear. It means I have lots of freedom to do other things than grind for money when I play, and its a bit addicted to do a good deal in trade or AH.
I value my real life time – though not enough to stop myself from playing an mmo – i pay blizzard so that i can play with my RL friends. I just really really hate the repetitive tasks wow puts you through to ‘earn’ gold which you in turn need to have an enjoyable game experience.
That which takes the average wow user an hour of real life time to farm I can make in two clicks. The more gold you have the easier it is to make even more gold.
There are only 23 hours and 56 minutes in a day. The less of that time i spend doing things I despise the better. Nobody lives forever and I’d hate to think I paid real currency to waste precious hours of my time doing something I hate.