Some Obvious WoW tips

As a break from lamenting the bailout, I thought I’d write a bit about Warcraft, specifically some tips. Most players know these already, but they might be useful.

First, gray items can be worth money. Like most players, I used to toss gray items without a second thought. However, many of them sell reasonable well to vendors. For example, I’ve found gray weapons that I sold for around 1 gold and up. Not much, but that is more than what an empty bag slot will get you. Naturally, it is usually better to replace gray items with better quality items (white and up), but don’t overlook some easy coin. Yes, I know hard core players are dealing in thousands of gold pieces and working the auction house like a a pimp works his ladies. But not everyone has that eBay-ish pimping style.

Second, it can be handy to have an auction/bank/mail alt. Since only the major cities have auction houses and banks, it is easy to end up carrying piles of things you want to auction or bank but cannot. An easy solution is to park a character in one of the major cities and mail him/her the items you want to auction or bank. While you will have to pay postage, a little fake coin is easily worth the savings in real time. Since most areas have mailboxes, the alt can mail your other characters what they need. Since mail between your own characters is instant, this can be very handy-especially for non-bound quest items or for mailing supplies (like cooking spices) that cannot be bought where your main character is adventuring.

Third, one somewhat less than well known fact is that while you have to be level 58 to go through the Dark Portal into Outland, a character of any level can be summoned (by warlock) or go through a portal (provided by a mage) in Outland. The best thing to do is to get a portal or summons to Shattrath City (be sure to tip) and set your hearthstone there. That way you can port back to the inn and take a portal to any of the major cities in your faction. It is, in effect, like having multiple options for your hearthstone. Also, you can gain access to the trainers early if your skills are high enough. For example, players in my group have hit 300 in their professions way before level 58. Without access to Outland, they would be stuck at 300 for quite some time. Naturally, Blizzard stuck the trainers in Outland so people have to buy the expansion set to get their skills beyond 300.