From Rags to Riches in WOW - Day 1

It's cold in Ironforge and I'm not used to being alone. Or poor.

Definitely an odd feeling being on a new realm, at level 1 and no sugar daddy to send bags of coin my way so I can get all the best gear and training. But that's exactly what I want.

I've been pretty successful at making gold off the Auction House (AH) in World of Warcraft (WOW) and find myself thinking "boy, I wish I knew all this when I was first starting out." So this is an experiment to find out how long it takes for a brand-spanking new character, on a new realm, with no money and no help (twinking) from other toons, to make it rich.


First I need to define what it means to be "rich" or else I'll never know when I'm done. For the purposes of this experiment I'm going define rich as consisting of these four things:

1. Own the best green gear available from the AH for my level that's available.
2. Have a Fiery Enchant for my main weapon.
3. Carrying 100g on my person for spending.

Now item #3 might not seem like a lot to some, but I expect to hit this milestone sometime before 20. And from my experience and the people I know that's pretty good. Especially considering the gold I plan to spend along the way.

So how long is this going to take? My theory is that this won't take that long and that it only takes a little silver to get the snowball rolling and building. So I'm curious to see how long it takes.

Another aspect to this is that I want to actually play with my character, and I shouldn't be spending all my time in the AH. Though there are likely to be times that I spend A LOT of time in the AH.

OK, back to Ironforge. It's Day 1.

Never played with a Hunter before, or a Dwarf, so take a wild guess as to what kind of toon I created for this experiment. I picked a Medium sized realm with a fairly close distribution between Alliance and Horde population.

Because loading up Auctioneer add on with AH data is so critical to making gold in the AH, I need to start scanning ASAP. My plan was to run to the AH first, before starting any quests, to perform a full scan of this new market. To my surprise I found that wasn't such an easy feat. Starting out in Ironforge (IF) as a Dwarf you need to fight your way through a bunch of level 4 mobs in order to break free of the beginner zone. So...

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.....I leveled up to 6 (just to get all the hunter skills) and made my way to IF. In the process of leveling up I realized I had forgotten just how painfully difficult it is to make money just by questing/killing mobs when you are low level. This is a problem. I'm not going to need a lot of silver, but I will need some to start making money in the AH. But I don't want to start buying/selling when I'm 10 levels higher either.

The solution? Professions of course.

There are three professions that will generate the most coin early in the game: herbalism, mining and skinning. These all feed raw materials for the other professions so the trade goods they produce are always in demand. Herbalism will not allow you to start making decent coin flow until you are exploring level 20 areas or higher, so that's out. I go with mining and skinning.

Started the day with zero coin. By the time Day 1 is done, I've leveled up to 6, made it to IF, got two new professions and all the gear for them, made the inn in IF my home and I've completed my first scan of the AH. The amount of money I have left....19 copper.

Hmmm, I don't thing I'm buying anything to flip today, but that's OK. I've got all the groundwork set. I expect to be able start flipping in the AH tomorrow. It's going to be an exciting day.

Oh, and this Hunter is a blast to play with. Looking forward to my first pet :)

On to Day 2...