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I only started a few months ago and I started on one of the older servers so it has a stable economy and lots and lots of level 60 players. There still always seems to be people leveling up new characters and looking for groups though I would expect that a newer server would have much more. There is usually plenty of decent gear of all levels in the Auction House.

One nice thing about Blizzard is that they keep opening up new servers as needed and they usually keep those servers closed to transfers for a few months and only allow new characters to be started. This means that the majority of the population of these servers is all around the same level and there shouldn't be any problem in putting together parties.

not at all. As a matter of fact, after the expansion hits the shelves, I'd be willing to wager that a LOT of players will start new toons in the new races being introduced.


I haven't had many problems finding people to party with.


15K for L25 equipment!?!?!? You won't find anything that expensive in WoW. The AH has really inexpensive items (most of which are better than anything you craft). You should be able to fully outfit yourself at that level for less than a few gold, unless you want an uber-twinked toon (even then 15K is ludicrous!). Gold is easy to come by, so the economy is not an issue. There are some items that cannot be sold or traded between players (or even your own toons). Those are quest rewards, or rare (or better) drops.

Yes you will, but they are for the most part only twinking items, they are not something a first time player will by for their character.

Dont worry, there will be plenty of items for a first time player to buy on the auction house as well.



I dont know if i agree with that quote totally. Healing classes are always desireable, but chances are there will be SOOO many people rolling them once BC comes out that it will be a miserable leveling experience. Stick to the classes that have been well established, and try not to roll the blood elves or dranei at all costs. The starting locations for these races will be overwhelmed with people competing for quest items.

If you wish to be a desirable character, roll a priest - any class except the two new ones. A troll priest is a lovely character!! :) (But thats just my opinion)

Edited, Nov 30th 2006 5:44pm by lauisifer

Which is also why WOnderousTremor created his "How to make gold" guide. Which is also why I always answer the same question again and again. Gold is easy. 100G by level 30 is trivial. Even 1000G by level 30 is doable - you just have to put a little more effort into getting gold. All that someone has to do is put a bit of time into it. "Get-rich-quick" won't work unless the originator of the question puts some effort in.


Prices do vary by server, but what you said is not necessarily true. A good tool, like Auctioneer, will help immensely in locating bargains.


Bad advise! The Auction House will get you better armor and weapons than most you'll get as quests or drops (without going through the same instance many, many times to obtain one particular drop. If you want to do that, stick with FFXI and kill crabs. Money is so easy in WoW that you shouldn't have to worry about whether you can afford to buy at the AH. Capitalize on other people's good luck by buying the drops they can't use.

You're going to tell me that the best gear in the game isn't obtained by quests?

Thunderfury comes to mind...Ice Barbed Spear...etc.



So, i guess browsing these forums too much has clouded my mind with such nonsense of Instance gear > AH gear.

Even at low levels Instances (And the quests associated with them) Give better rewards than what is available, Chausses of Westfall, Ring of Sylvannas, Smite's Hammer, Blackened Defias Armor etc. These are all readily obtainable and superior to most other low level gear available. And that's just a few examples, the list goes on.

And to : ohmikeghod

I appreciate your advise and guidance, but even if i spent all my time fishing instead of running an instance for lets say "similar gear" I'd probably end up spending almost an identical amount of time trying to earn the money for an 120g AH item as i would for that drop from Zul'Farrak. Kang vs Sul'thraze (for example)

What i said was not condoning the AH, but rather advising the OP that similar/better gear is available for "free" through instances.

I don't know if you ever played FFXI, but it became a nightmare because all you did was farm gil for that uber-item you wanted. I hated the game after a while because all you do was farm for gil or kill for gil etc.. WoW gives you a choice, so from one FFXI'er to another, my advise was to stay away from the gold farm routine and spend more time questing and instancing rather than falling right back into the same ol' same ol' that made us want to switch in the first place.

So, how many times did you go through Deadmines to get Smite's Mighty Hammer and all 5 items of Blackened Defias leather armor? ...and did you win all the rolls for those items? Oh, that's right - only the chestpiece is BoP. For an average price of 6G 40S for the 4 BoE, you can use the AH for the BoE pieces. But then, of course, you wouldn't be choosing the Chausses of Westfall as your reward for completing the VC quest, because you'd be a leather wearer, right? Van Cleef doesn't drop a BoP blue for mail wearers.

I agree that BoPs are better than BoE gear of the same level. However, it's quite a difference between getting those good BoPs and saying "AH in WoW is not the best way to get gear at anytime in the game.". If you fail a roll on that good blue item, or it doesn't drop (and you have the gold available), the AH is a great alternative. In general, I stop running instances when I have all the instance quests completed, rather than going in again and again to get the "good drop" and then rolling low when it finally comes up. I realize that some people do go into instances for forever (or until those drops are well below the toon's level), and more power to them - but for me, I'd rather move on, make a bit of gold and buy what's best on the AH. I usually go to the AH every 2 levels and get myself the best stuff that's better than what my toon is wearing/using. It doesn't mean that I ignore instances or getting lucky (I have gotten some great drops). But, if something better than the drop shows up in the AH, I'll be there to buy it. By L10, I fully expect any toon of mine to be in all greens. By L20, I will probably have a smattering of blues. And I don't feed my other toons any gold - they make their own. It's not hard, and it's not rocket science.

Edited, Dec 2nd 2006 12:26am by ohmikeghod

One thing I didn't see mentioned, since the thread got stuck on the economy side of things is that, while finding a group for an instance (dungeon) or elite quest (a quest that is ramped up in difficulty from the norm for that level) isn't very tough even at lower levels, you don't really need to for most of your levelling career. Solobility for all classes is quite high and you can do just fine for most of the normal quests on your own. It can get boring sometimes, so finding a good duo/trio just for fun is good too, but the game is not dependent on the party aspect to get you to 60.

As far as gear is, my 2c is to use quest drops and use instance drops, and fill holes with inexpensive AH gear. If you're levelling (esp on your first character) money may be a little tight, and you'll be going through the gear pretty quick. No use spending half your bank on an item you'll outgrow pretty quickly. (No use spending all your time farming instances for one either). A little of both will work well.

You will see some nice low level blues (Green Quality items = Uncommon, Blue = Rare, Purple = Epic, the available stats on these items for the required level increase as the quality goes up) going for incredible prices, but those aren't aimed toward the levellers, so just ignore them (or keep an eye out for one being sold for very very cheap and resell it). (In fact, if you happen to get your hands on one, it will boost your cash flow quite a bit)

The economy is quite stable, mostly due to the top of the line items being Bind on Pickup (this means that once you pick them up, you can't resell them or trade them to players). Most other items are Bind on Equip, which means that one you put them on, they are soulbound and you can't sell/trade them to players. You're also not going to find bots farming the high end mobs, as they are inside instances (for the most part, there are a few outdoor raid mobs, but the fewer bots in wow wouldn't touch them if they had any survival programming whatsoever).