Income

Income, refers to consumption opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms.[1] In World of Warcraft your income is displayed by the amount of money your player character owns.

Gaining and losing money

The amount of money a player character can carry in World of Wacraft can be as high as the gold limit and as low as zero but never negative. A player can own more than the gold limit by dividing money between his player characters with the mail but the amount the player owns can not be negative.

Gaining money

In World of Warcraft a player character can gain money from an NPC, as reward for quest or by selling items to an vendor. Most but not all type of items, even if soulbound, can be sold to an vendor for a fixed price and in unlimited quantity. A player can also gain money from another player.

Losing money

A player can lose money to by paying an vendor, for repair cost, items and in quests. A player can also lose money to other another player.

Ways of gaining money

Since every activity in World of Warcraft consumes time, the effectiveness of gaining money can be messured by the time it consumes. The amount of profit possible with a certain activity may also depend on the rate of risk not making a profit or even losing money in the process.

• Grinding
• Farming
• Questing
• Producing
• Transportation
• Reselling
• Others

Grinding

Many mobs in World of Warcraft drop money. So by just killing mobs a player character can loot money. The items these mobs drop can also be sold to a Vendor or other player characters.

Grinding may not be an very effectiv way of gaining money since the amount of money dropped by mobs is relatively low depending on their level. Grey and white items can be an additional source of money by selling them to a vendor. Uncommen or rare items that may infrequently drop may bring more profit by selling the in the auctionhouse.The financial risk of grinding is relativ low. Repair cost for durability loss for fighting and dying or money for food and drink will lower the profit.

Farming

• Farming without a profession
• Farming with a profession

Farming without a profession

Farming without a profession is basicly grinding but aiming for a special item of higher value, that may drop from the farmed mob such as a recepie, materials for production profession or a rare item like the captured firefly. Effectiveness of farming depend on the drop chance and the value of an item, as well as how fast the player character can kill these mobs, how much are there and how fast they respawn. Profitable mobs may attract many players specialy at prime time leading to long wating for spawning mob and PVP fights, which can lower the effectivness considerable. Internet Databases like Wowhead or Thottbot providing the invormation about the scource of an item. While finacial risk may still be relativ low, like with grinding the player can loot money from the mob but repair cost for durability loss for fighting and dying or money for food and drink will lower the profit, to make a higher profit the from the farmed items the player must still sell them to other players via trade channel or auction house. Risking not finding a buyer or losing much of the profit with auction fees.

Farming with a profession

Farming with profession is gathering materials for production profession via primary gathering professions like

• Herbalism
• Mining
• Skinning

or secondary gathering Professions like

• Fishing

If a Player character is able to gather materials with these professions depens on his professionskill and the level of the item. For skinning the player has to kill the mob so profit may depend on his fighting strength and he may gain repair cost like with grinding . Professions like herbalism and mining need a lot of traveling between the herbs or mines so a high traveling or flying speed will raise the effectivness of the gathering as may secial abilities like the druid flight form, saveing the time to mount up and off.

Items gainted by these professions are obtaineble almost exclusive with these professions and are needed for producing professions so even low level items can provide a proper profit since they are still needet for raising the profession skill. If not used for the own producing professions the player still has to sell these items via trade channel or auction house risking not finding a buyer or losing much of the profit with auction fees.

• Tailoring

With the introduction of the Northern Cloth Scavenging abilitie for Tailoring this profession can to some extent be seen as a gathering profession as well since it will give the player character an advantage on farming cloth but cloth can still be farmed by anyone else without the tailoring profession.

Questing

Finishing a quest is usualy rewarded with money, experience point and sometimes with items. If the player character is at the maximal level the experience points of many quest will be converted to money. Making quests can be an effective way of gaining money since the cost are relativ low and predictable, and the reward is guaranteed. But the number of quests in World of Warcraft is limited. Many quests can be finished only once by an player character. Repeatable quests are not rewardet with money or as daily quests are limited to 25 quests a day for one player character.

Producing

A player character can gain money by obtaining materials, producing items with one of the primary or secondary production professions and selling those items to another player or an vendor. I World of Warcraft the materials needed for producing an item are specified by the recepie, making the cost of production calculable.

Transportation

A player might gain profit by buying an item from a vendor, transportat it and sell it to players who does not know, care for, can not reach or don't want spend the time traveling to the location of the vendor. Commen items for these kind of income are professions recepies, second profession books or companions. Some items like the faction exclusive companions can provide an even higher profid by selling them through the neutral auction house since this is the only way members of the other faction can obtain these items. The finacilal risk is relativ low since most of these items are cheap and more or less constandly wanted by some player characters. A player can also lower the traveling time by placing an alt close to the vendor.

Reselling

Buying items with the propose of selling them for a higher price to a vendor or an other player. The price, players are willing to pay for an item, can fluctuate considerable over the course of days weeks or month. a player might gain a profit by buying items from other players or from the auction house, speculating on a rising of the price in the future. A short term version of this method is, to buy underpriced items and relisting them in the auction house for a higher price.

Another method is to speculat on periodical fluctuations of the price over the course of the day or the week due to the playtime cycle of the majority of the players on a server, resulting in periodic changes of supply and demand. The price mostly being high at the begin of the server prime time, with low supply and high demand. With the supply rising, as more and more players will farm, produce and trade items, starting to undercut each other, the price will eventually start to fall. At the ending of the server prime time the demand goes down and the price will fall further, rising again with the next server prime time. While the total price of an item may depend on other factors too, these periodic changes may remain constant since they are based not on reasons within the virtual economy of World of Warcraft but rather on the playing practice of the player majority on a server, a very constant factor, disturbed only to some degree by seasonal holydays.

A player can also speculate on price changes due to the implementation of new gamecontend like new items, instances, an new addon or the beginning of a new arena season.

In World of Warcraft the price a vendor will pay for an itmen is fixed and can be viewd in the tooltip window or by selling them to a vendor.

You can sell items in to other players with the trade window ,the mail and the auctionhouse. Selling items in World of Warcraft to other player is only possible if the item is not already soulbound.

Sell items to a vendor

In World of Warcraft, a vendor will buy almost any, even a soulbound item for a fixed price and in unlimited quantity. A vendor may not be the most profitable buyer but a very reliable, calculable and in many cases the only one.

Sell items to other players

Unlike vendors, the amount of money a player character pays for an item in a trade with another player depends solely on decision by these players limited only by the amount of money the buyer owns. players will most times act with economical reason thus making it possible to apply, with exceptions, business strategies of the "real world" to the virtual economy of World of Warcraft.

Others

Other, in some cases morally questionable, ways of gaining money may include to charge money for a service, loan, scam, to beg other players for money or gold buying .

A player can demand money for helping other players, in example for a time it was a common practice to pay a player character, who owns Seal of Ascension, for open up Upper Blackrock Spire for other groups.

Loan money to another player depends entire on trust since there no way real way of forcing the borrower to pay the debt.

Gaining money with the forbidden and highly disputed gold buying can ,economical, be seen as a "gift" of gold from one player, the gold farmer, to another player, the gold buyer because the gold farmer still has to gain the money or gold inside the game. Gold farmer may rely on farming enable them the forbidden use of farmbots.