Meet Ohnekase: The Basics, Part 1: Looting and Maximizing gold from Quest Rewards

Meet Ohnekase

Human Hunter, Deathwing US

Ohnekase is a new character just starting out in the world of Azeroth.  He is going to help us with some basic tips for effective gold-making even if you aren't actively trying to make money.  In a later post, he will be the first guinea pig for my first profession guide.  This post is going to be more of a super noobie guide (because of all the basics it talks about).  Today, he is going to learn about the importance of looting everything and selling it for money.

So, lets begin.

1)  Loot Everything:  So, we are starting out.  We are broke.  We have no copper to our name.  However, most everything is really good about giving us items.  These items can sell.  We want to make sure we can loot everything that drops from any given mob.  As such, let us set up our User Interface to loot things for us.

First, go into your Menu Button (Escape on your keyboard), then click the button that says interface.

There are a lot of useful buttons.  Auto-loot is what we are
concerned about, but you should play in here if it is your
first time.

On the first page is the "Controls" tab, which has the "Auto Loot" button.  I would highly recommend clicking this and then setting up the "Auto Loot Key" underneath it (I prefer the shift button).  The reason for this is twofold.  First, it will automatically loot all of that crap that mobs drop for you, so that it can save you a little time.  Second, if you do need to be picky on what you loot, you can hold the "Auto Loot Key" (whatever it is set at) to look at the loot before getting it.

Now, the reason we are picking up everything is that, everything has worth.  Even if it is not a lot, everything has worth.  Those small items of worth can add up to a reasonable amount, which allows us to do everything we need to do.  

Oooh, stuff.  I wonder what I can do with it

Sweet. I can get $$$ for this.

Anytime you hover over the item, it will tell you what it is worth.  Once you have an item of worth, you can sell it, either to a Vendor (who will give you a set price for something), or to a player, if it is an item that someone will pay for, or through the Auction House (which we will use a lot, but we will save it for another day).  To sell an item, talk to the vendor, click on the item and then click on the window.  Or you can right click the item in your inventory to automatically do it.

Before:  Here I don't need this junk.

After:  Yay, money.

Ok, so yeah, that is the basics, but what is my point.  Well, some of the things we will be doing in the guide require money, so I thought I should give the basics of getting money.

Loot does have color associated with the text.  This does matter, however, we will cover this in part 2 of this particular post (as the post is going long already).  What we will touch on is a way to increase your money while you are doing basic things like quests.

2) Getting More Cash from Quests:  So, I said that you can get items from the quests that you do.  This is great, but they have to give items to a lot of people, many of whom do not wear the items that you do.  As such, when there isn't something we can use, we can make money off of it.  Observe:

Hello Marshal McBride.  I worked real hard to kill them wolves

So, here is Ohnekase's reward for finishing his first quest.  For completing it, we get Experience, Money, and an item.  This item is leather and would be better than the item we have.  Thanks Marshal McBride.  Lets grab that and wear it.

However, later, in Goldshire...

Ok, so you are telling me that I went an killed Kobolds for you,
died 2 times, and all I am getting is a silver and a useless item?
What am I going to do with cloth armor, wipe my nose?

Mail huh.  A little heavy, don't ya think.  I am an adventurer
I don't need more weight.

Ok, for this hunter, I am turning in a quest where I get to choose one of two items.  One I can wear, but I lose armor in the process (it is cloth, so it isn't good for a hunter).  The other I cannot wear at all right now.  So, which to choose?

Well, lets look at the Sell price to a vendor.  Seeing as how I have no incentive to wear either, lets pick the most expensive one (in this case, the Mail armor), and get it so that I can sell to a vendor.  That way, I get a little richer without actually have to do anything, other than make a choice of two things I don't want.  Just for that, I made 20 copper more than I would have.

Conclusion...

While for our low level characters, the money we are getting isn't overly significant, at high levels it quickly becomes worth a lot.  There are many times when you have a choice of 3 items that you can't use and one of them is 10 - 20 gold more than the others.  

In addition, looting everything can start giving you some nice starting capitol.  I have seen differences in 100 gold or so at level 40 from different people who looted corpses and didn't loot.  Items will make us money, and the amount you can sell your junk items for is not insignificant.  These may be really basic tips, but they are tips that even high level character's don't look at.

Next time, we will discuss different item rarities and how we can use the Auction House to help us make more money.

See Ya Next Time....