You've learned a lot about how to think before you start gathering gold in World of Warcraft, but what about the actual act of heading out and farming for gold. There are dozens of zones and thousands of mobs to choose from, so where do you go and what do you look for when you grind?

Three Things Every Good Grinding Location Should Have

Every good gold farming location should have the following three things:

1) Mobs - They should respawn quickly, be relatively easy to kill (with minimal downtime) and drop lots of greens, rares, and the occasional epic item. Humanoids are best for their cloth drops.

2) Gathering Profession Nodes - You want mining or herbalism nodes if you chose these as your professions. Those with skinning should look for beasts to grind on.

3) Alternate Locations - If you choose a secluded location with only a few mobs and two more players show up to farm, you are going to lose a lot of gold gathering speed. Make sure you have alternate spots.

Essential #4: Grinding Essentials

You will be presented with a lot of different grinding locations, but you can be sure they will all match the above criteria (with a few exceptions where high level items or pets might drop). The goal is to maximize your efficiency, earning as much gold as possible, as quickly as possible. The more gold you can make per hour, the better your grinding location is. Be realistic though. At level 20, you will not make 100 gold an hour, but you might be able to make 15 or 20.

A final tip I like to add as often as possible is to always try and have fun. If you don't like the zone or the mobs you are grinding on for whatever reason, find a different spot. Unless you are hunting a single item that only one mob drops, there are always other grinding locations that are comparable in terms of gold making rates. When you stop having fun, you risk turning the game into a job.

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Thus far, we've discussed in detail how to do your research and become acclimated with exactly how the World of Warcraft economy works and what you can do to take advantage of limited time events and changes to the game. Today, we're going to delve a bit more into the nitty-gritty of everyday gold making as you will learn why the only real way to make gold in the game is to invest a little.

Investment is the Key to Any Monetary Success

Have you ever heard the saying, "money does not grow on trees"? It might be a bit of a cliché but it's particularly apt for our purposes. Money does not sprout from trees in World of Warcraft; you have to do a little bit of work and invest a bit of gold to make gold, but if you know how to do it properly, you can make back your gold over and over again.

Essential #3: Investing to Make Gold

The first step to investing is to learn that your time is just as much of an investment as your gold. Spending three hours grinding on elementals in Nagrand for 500 gold is an investment. It is a sound investment, but an investment nonetheless - and if you come away with an epic drop and make 900 gold in those 3 hours, all the better; your investment was very sound.

Investing in World of Warcraft is low risk for those who grind, but only if they know where to grind. For those that seek to buy and sell in the Auction House, the risk can be a little higher. You must learn how to buy low and sell high. Using the tips in our two previous discussions, you should now have a good idea of how to do this, using tools and insider information to get ahead of the curve and always make a profit.

In addition, you need to learn where to look for opportunities that are incredibly sound investments; I'm speaking of limited items and vendors. Littered throughout the game are vendors selling recipes, bags, and pets that are very hard to find. For example, Dealer Rashaad in Netherstorm sells a half dozen rare pets for around 10 gold each. You can turn around and resell any of them for up to 300 gold at Auction. You just made 3000% back on your investment with about 10 minutes of your time.

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Also they say, "timing is everything" If you need a better excuse then this, to play Age of Conan, then you must really be thick headed. We have an AoC exploit board and invite everyone to play this instead and join our AoC community.

Last time you learned how your own research and insights can help you jump ahead and become a pro in recognizing World of Warcraft economic trends. Today you are going to learn how you can get an extra edge by using bits and pieces of information that many other players don't know about.

What is This Top Secret Information?

To be truthful, nothing is really top secret; other players just don't pay close enough attention many times and that means those that do can be that much more successful. Blizzard gives you everything you need to get a jump start on your fellow players every now and then; if you can be there waiting before anyone else, you can take advantage of these little doses of extra information.

Essential #2: Staying Ahead of the Competition

The first method to jumping out ahead of your competition is to know when the patches are going to occur. Blizzard performs patches constantly, with a major patch occurring every 3-4 months. In these major patches, entire sections of the game can be changed with dozens or hundreds of items having their stats, uses, or drop rates changed.

This is the information you should be looking for. The key here is that Blizzard releases notes on their patches usually a month or so ahead of the patch to give players time to get ready. They run the patches on test servers to make sure they are ready to go live and that means you get to know what the new changes will be before they happen. Many other players don't bother to read the patch notes very closely or are too lazy to plan ahead.

You probably already know this Spitt, but if you plan ahead by collecting items that will become better after the patch, or selling off items that will become worse, you can make a killing just by reading notes ahead of time. I personally make a HUGE bulk of my gold this way.

Another clever way to take advantage of Blizzard's free information giveaways is to be standing by whenever a server is about to go down for maintenance or an update. By bidding on a huge number of short listed auctions just before the patch goes live or right before maintenance, you can increase your likelihood of winning these auctions while everyone is off checking out new content after the servers go back up.

If you start thinking in this same way, you will start seeing clever ways you can start making even more gold by taking advantage of limited time events such as holidays, the bimonthly Dark Moon Faire, and server events.

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To best present to players who want to play their servers for as much gold as possible, the Warcraft Millionaire gold making program has been loaded with tips and strategies about limited time events and gold making methods. Learn hundreds of ways to make gold, simply by being in the right place at the right time.

How do I Know What to Be Collecting?

The key to making gold in World of Warcraft is in knowing which items are worth gold and which deserver your time and attention. There are some items that are a complete waste of time and others that may seem like a waste of time (but that are really highly profitable). The first step then is to be knowledgeable about what you should be farming, buying, and selling and when you should be doing so.

Essential #1: Being Informed

Being informed does not merely mean that you should buy a guide and follow every step in it to the letter. While this will go a long way toward helping you make a small fortune in the game, you will eventually need to start doing your own research and tracking your own trends. I like to break this down into three main categories:

1) Observations - Your observations will be more valuable than you might imagine. Every server has different needs, different supply and demand, and different players. If you notice that a website's estimation of an Auction price is 60% lower than your server, take note of this and boost your production of that item. Take constant notes and always double check them when you login.

2) Research - There are countless ways to do research. Websites like WoWHead and Thottbot each contain countless pages of content about every item, vendor, and recipe in the game. Know what you're looking at, what other people have to say about the item, and just how rare it is before making decisions.

3) Resources - Resources in the form of GUI add-ons to your interface can be priceless in helping you boost your in-game knowledge. Auctioneer, Enchantrix, CT_Mod, and a half dozen other mods all make it easier to see item values at a glance without spending valuable time logging out and researching online.

With all of these steps in hand, you can start approaching each gold making method you find with a full head of knowledge, sure to cover all the angles and never be left in the dark as to the cost or the value of the item again.

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While your own research and insights are vital to success in making gold, a good guide to gold making methods and locations is a must.