World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

Questing for gold is the backbone of the World of Warcraft economy. All the gold out there has to come from somewhere, and with the trifling amounts that drop from mobs most of it comes from quests.

Grinding quests for gold is the lowest level of the gold-making food chain, but you need to start somewhere. The gold you make here is going to be used to fuel your professions and to develop a pool of cash that you can invest in-game for a profit. Making gold from questing is recommended only for players that have no other way of getting gold and who have overhead costs that they need to pay such as gearing their characters, leveling professions, or purchasing epic flying.

Because questing is such an inefficient way to make gold, your primary objective is going to be getting your quests out of the way as quickly as possible and doing quests that give you the best bang for your buck. Here's a quick list of things to check for:

• 1. How much gold does the quest offer? You're going to want to find quests that offer at minimum 10 gold, preferably 13 or more.
• 2. Is there an added bonus for quest completion? Some quests offer rewards in addition to gold, some of which are very valuable.
• 3. Is the quest nearby other quests? This is an important one. You're not going to want to fly all over hell's half acre for one quest, ideally you can complete multiple quests at the same time and minimize your time spent.

The quests that best fit all three of these criteria tend to be daily quests. Daily quests are repeatable quests that 'respawn' every day. These quests are usually high level and offer substantial rewards in addition to being grouped into 'hubs'. It is frequently the case that you can grab four or more daily quests from the same camp or city and they are designed to be completed in bunches, so they can usually be done very quickly and simultaneously.

There is a 25 quest limit on the number of daily quests you can complete every day. You are free to complete as many as fit your play schedule, but there are more than enough lucrative quests to justify hitting the 25 quest limit each and every day.

The Top 25 Daily Quests:

• 1. Fishing Daily - Rewards random gold amount and items, some of which can be valued over 100g.
• 2. Threat From Above - Defeat Chillmaw and 3 Cultist Bombardiers. Bring friends. Rewards 23g23s and two Champion's Seals.
• 3. Taking Battle To The Enemy - Kill 15 members of the Cult of the Damned. Rewards 23g23s and a Champion's Seal.
• 4. Battle Before The Citadel - Kill 3 Boneguard Commanders. Rewards 23g23s and a Champion's Seal.
• 5. Among the Champions - Earn 4 Marks of the Champion by jousting. Rewards 23g23s and a Champion's Seal.
• 6. High Crusader Adelard's Quest - This NPC offers one of four quests each day that requires you to kill a named monster in northern Icecrown. Rewards 13g23s and a Champion's Seal.
• 7. Crusader Silverdawn's Quest - Offers one of two quests in northern Icecrown. Rewards 13g23s and a Champion's Seal.
• 8. A Chip Off the Ulduar Block - Grab 15 Small Stone Blocks near Ulduar. Rewards 13g23s.
• 9. Jack Me Some Lumber - Journey to Crystalsong Forest and kill some tree elements for wood. Rewards 13g23s.
• 10. You've Really Done It This Time, Kul - Rescue Kul the Reckless and 4 Captive Aspirants from Deathspeaker's Watch. Rewards 13g23s and a Champion's Seal.
• 11. Blowing Hodir's Horn - defeat 5 Niffelem Forefathers and 5 Restless Frostborn and blow Hodir's Horn on their corpses. Rewards 13g23s.
• 12. Feeding Arngrim - Feed Arngrim's ghost 5 Disembodied Jormungar. Rewards 13g23s.
• 13. Polishing the Helm - Kill Viscous Oils for 5 "Viscous Oil." Rewards 13g23s.
• 14. Spy Hunter - Defeat 3 Stormforged Spies. Rewards 13g23s.
• 15. Thrusting Hodir's Spear - Use Hodir's Spear to mount and ride a wild wyrm, kill the wyrm and claim your reward. Rewards 16g53s.
• 16. Vile Like Fire! - Use a Njorndar Proto-Drake to burn buildings in Jotunheim. Rewards 12g23s.
• 17. Shoot 'Em Up - Use the harpoons in Jotunheim to kill 20 Proto-Drakes. Rewards 13g23s.
• 18. Leave Our Mark - Kill 15 Jotunheim Vykrul and thrust an Ebon Blade banner into their corpses. Rewards 13g23s.
• 19. No Fly Zone - Kill 10 Onslaught Gryphon Riders at Onslaught Harbor. Rewards 13g23s.
• 20. Intelligence Gathering - Collect 5 Onslaught Intel Documents from members of the onslaught at Onslaught Harbor. Rewards 13g23s.
• 21. From Their Corpses, Rise! Kill 10 members of the onslaught and turn their corpses into ghouls. Rewards 13g23s.
• 22. Drag and Drop - Collect Orbs of Illumination and use them on Dark Subjugators at Aldur'thar. Rewards 13g23s.
• 23. Not a Bug - Collect 5 Dark Matters and summon a Dark Messenger at Aldur'thar. Rewards 13g23s.
• 24. Retest Now - Throw a Writhing Mass into a cauldron at Aldur'thar. Rewards 13g23s.
• 25. King of the Mountain - Use the robot at Ymirheim to climb the mountain. Fastest daily ever. Rewards 13g23s.
• 26. The special option. If you have access to the Jewelcrafting daily do it. This quest is worth over 100g per day for little effort.

Use the map below as a reference for where you can pick these quests up, after that the built in Quest Helper will do the rest!

Click the image to enlarge for best results!

These quests are concentrated in four hubs over two zones. The Sons of Hodir dailies (11-15) are done at the Sons' stronghold in the Storm Peaks. Pretty much everything else is done in Icecrown.

By far the most profitable daily quests are the Argent Tournament dailies (2-7). These quests become available once you do a bunch of lucrative preliminary quests at the tournament. The rule of thumb to follow is to do any tournament quests that you see. These quests also yield Champion's Seals that can be turned in for faction-unique pets that you can re-sell on the neutral Auction House for even more cash.

The rest of the quests are concentrated in various areas around the Icecrown zone there are more quests than these but these were selected for their speed and ease of completion.

I completed a trial run of these quests on a 310% epic flying mount in just over 2 hours. Total cash earned was a bit over 400g including random greens and sellable loot. 200g per hour is not too shabby for just starting out.

The Value of Epic Flying

Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. When you don't have epic flying (280%+ speed) then you're looking at one of those times.

Epic flight form is absolutely necessary for gold making via questing and gathering. The majority of your time spent doing these activities is travel time, so it's simple math: if you can halve your travel time you can double your earnings. That's saying nothing about the quality of life improvements you'll receive by being able to zoom around Northrend.

Are Daily Quests Enough For You?

Daily quests are worth about 400g per day depending on your luck. They are also time consuming and require your full attention. 400g is enough to cover pretty much any day-to-day expenses for the average player like repairs, enchants, and gems.

For the would-be trade baron or the big spender that collects mounts and pets or frequently makes new twinked out alts you're going to have to take it to the next level. Stockpile your gold, get your epic flyer and stay tuned for the next installment where we'll discuss advanced gold farming tactics.