Oh noes! More newb Q's!

[Alaris Mystique]

Yes, me again...

But you've been so much help, how could I not ask more questions? (thanks)

1) I was playing in the crossroads area with my troll hunter, and I ended up playing alongside a level 25 gnome. We did most of a cave, side by side. Then it dawned on me... a gnome? Slightly higher-level than me? So in the same lines as my travelling thread, could I get to alliance areas with my low-level horde chars, and vice-versa? If so, what do I look for, and what are the risks if any?

2) I only recently starting playing around with professions, so I read up on them. My general understanding is that (a) gathering professions are usually easier to use to generate money, and (b) crafting professions give you goodies early and cheap. But to be honest, I'm too action-oriented to want to spend too much time trading. So if gathering is good enough gold, then I can live with not producing. The one exception is engeneering, which gives you cool shades you can't get otherwise. Am I missing something?

3) Death sickness. Apparently I can't avoid it just by logging on my other chars for a few minutes. Is there an easy way to get rid of it?

Thanks

[wyren]

res back at your body and you do not get res sickness.

[waflob]

1) I was playing in the crossroads area with my troll hunter, and I ended up playing alongside a level 25 gnome. We did most of a cave, side by side. Then it dawned on me... a gnome? Slightly higher-level than me? So in the same lines as my travelling thread, could I get to alliance areas with my low-level horde chars, and vice-versa? If so, what do I look for, and what are the risks if any?

If you're on a PvE server, then try whatever areas you like. You won't get quests from Alliance NPCs, but you can explore and kill mobs there. Just watch out for guards, especially close to towns and villages. They will attack you and you could well end up PvP flagged. If you're on a PvP server, then it's probably not a good idea at low levels.


2) I only recently starting playing around with professions, so I read up on them. My general understanding is that (a) gathering professions are usually easier to use to generate money, and (b) crafting professions give you goodies early and cheap. But to be honest, I'm too action-oriented to want to spend too much time trading. So if gathering is good enough gold, then I can live with not producing. The one exception is engeneering, which gives you cool shades you can't get otherwise. Am I missing something?

Sounds about right. If, like me, you're a complete altoholic, then having a char that can tailor and DE stuff is great. Any spare cloth and BoE gear can be sent there. Make green cloth items to DE. The mats will sell well. At higher levels, bags also sell well.


3) Death sickness. Apparently I can't avoid it just by logging on my other chars for a few minutes. Is there an easy way to get rid of it?

As mentioned, if possible, don't res at the spirit healer, do a ghost run back to your corpse. not only does this save res sickness, but also a lot of repair costs.

hth

[mmorpg man]

when you first start, if you die and use the spirit healer you don't get any rez sickness, then at level 11 if you use the spirit healer you get 1 minute of rez sickness, level 12 you get 2 mins, level 3, 3mins, etc up to level 20 when you get 10 minutes of rez sickness and after that, every time you use the spirit healer you get 10 minutes rez sickness.

with the crafting professions, I've found that they are very much out of proportion to your leveling. most items (except quest rewards) will have a required level to use or wear, so for example you might make something that requires you to be level 20 to use. the problem is that when crafting, it is too slow for when you are leveling for you to use. say if you make a green chest that requires level 9 for you to wear. you make it but chances are you will be around level 15 by the time you are able to make it, and you probably picked up something better from an instance drop or a quest reward. in this respect its a lot better to save the crafting professions until you get to level 80.

also the crafting professions do make money, but most of it comes from the high level items used by raiders and end-game PvPers. for example in engineering, you have the ability to make guns, these guns are pretty useless and will get you no money until you can make the armored combat shotgun (best tanking gun) and the nessingway 4000 (best pre-nax dps gun).

[Twoflower]

crafting professions cost you money, and gathering professions get you money.

Crafting professions may give you some money back in the end, but that is only at level 80, with a few much saught after recipies, and even then it takes you months to get back the thousands of gold you invested first.

[Renata]

(b) crafting professions give you goodies early and cheap.

Not that cheap. You need to factor in all of the items you used to get to the necessary level to make what you're looking for.

Say, for example, you want to make yourself a pair of Flying Tiger Goggles, the first engineering goggles. These require level 100 in engineering to get. Looking at an engineering guide, these are all of the things you'd need to make to level up to 100 engineering:

- about 50 Rough Stones
- about 50 copper ore, turned into copper bars
- about 80 coarse stone
- 10 weak flux
- 10 wooden stocks
- 5 silver ore, turned into copper bars

The weak flux and stocks aren't that expensive, so I'm not even going to take those into account, but the other items can be expensive. So you're thinking "I'm a miner; I can get these for free" -- well, they're not free, because by using up mined resources, you're not selling those resources. This is the lost opportunity cost.

I'm going to use the average buyout prices, which as I have found is pretty representative of your average PvE server. This assumes that you are farming all possible materials, rather than buying them off the AH.

The coarse stone goes for an average buyout price of 5s, so 80 would sell for about 4g. The average buyout price of a single copper bar on the AH is 25s, which means that 50 copper represents just over 12g. Silver ore goes for big bucks on the AH because it's rare and people love to use it to skill up mining quickly; average buyout price of a single silver ore is 5g. So that's 25g potential down the drain.

Suddenly your "cheap" Flying Tiger Goggles are going to have an opportunity cost of more than 41g, before you even get the materials to MAKE them. In other words, if you'd sold the items you needed to get to 100 engineering, you'd be more than 41g ahead on an average PvE server. The goggles don't "only" cost 6 light leather and 2 tigerseye to make; they cost everything you had to invest to get your engineering to the necessary level.

There are other reasons to take up various manufacturing professions -- mostly because people find them fun in their own right. But I would never do them on a server where I didn't have an 80. My alts do them almost immediately, but I have an active 80 who is paying the bills.

...Ren

[mmorpg man]

the only times where its useful to level professions on a low level character are alchemy (the pots you make you can use while you level up, especially if you don't have any healing spells), enchanting (enchants can be used on any item at the start regardless of level) and engineering for twinks (you can make the best head pieces for level 19 twinks with engineering). apart from those 3 you are best leaving the crafting professions till level 80 when you can (with enough money) powerlevel through to the high levels and make some money with them.

however, in the next patch they are redoing most of the blacksmithing recipes and enchants for level 1-300 so things may change.

[Alaris Mystique]

Wow, seems like there's quite the consensus regarding professions! So it's gathering for me, because let's face it, the level 80 goal is very far in the future for me (playing 6-7 characters).

alchemy, enchanting, engineering for twinks

I'll keep those in mind... Well, I might get 1-2 to do engineering for fun actually (fun overrides income).

Suddenly your "cheap" Flying Tiger Goggles are going to have an opportunity cost of more than 41g, before you even get the materials to MAKE them.

Wow... Are those goggles even worth it? Can you buy or get similar goggles cheaper? (I assume so)

Crafting professions may give you some money back in the end, but that is only at level 80

Thx

its a lot better to save the crafting professions until you get to level 80.

Thx

If you're on a PvE server, then try whatever areas you like. You won't get quests from Alliance NPCs, but you can explore and kill mobs there. Just watch out for guards, especially close to towns and villages. They will attack you and you could well end up PvP flagged.

Sounds about right. If, like me, you're a complete altoholic, then having a char that can tailor and DE stuff is great. Any spare cloth and BoE gear can be sent there. Make green cloth items to DE. The mats will sell well. At higher levels, bags also sell well.

As mentioned, if possible, don't res at the spirit healer, do a ghost run back to your corpse. not only does this save res sickness, but also a lot of repair costs.

PvE server only, with 6 alts at the moment (considering a 7th as DK when I get one char to lvl 55, and perhaps another to have 4 on each side). My 4 horde are on a different server from my 2 alliance.

[Renata]

Yes, you can buy the Flying Tiger Goggles cheaper on the AH, but you still need to have at least 75 engineering skill to wear them (100 to make, 75 to wear). So you still need to invest money even to be able to wear them.

The reason people like them is that you can wear them earlier than most head pieces (you can't usually get head pieces with stats until your mid-20s, and if you buy them off the AH they tend to be expensive), but honestly, they aren't going to make that huge a difference to you anyway at that level.

But this was just one example of how even a low level manufactured item is not so cheap, in terms of what you could have gotten selling the raw materials to level up to that point.

...Ren

[mmorpg man]

if you really want to take a crafting profession while you're leveling your characters then jewlcrafting isn't that bad either. when you get high enough in the skill you can prospect ore (copper ore, tin ore, etc) to get gems. gems usually sell more than the ore so you might be able to make some money with that.

[Eliandor]

I'd say just take two gathering professions, (my suggestion, skinning and herbalism) and not worry about crafting until much later.

As has been said, you have to gather materials to craft the items you want to wear (leaving aside skilling up). You generally have to be higher level than you would be to wear the item to get the materials. You also have the opportunity cost of selling the mats vs using them. If you don't have the means to get money other ways, you're best off selling the mats for mount funding.

Even with high level toons, unless you're looking at jewelcrafting or alchemy with bind-on-pickup items, (items that bind to you when you make them and thus cannot be bought or sold) you're far better off just buying the items from the auction house. Why burn a few hundred copper, tin and iron ore/bars to make that breastplate when you can buy it for a 1/20th of what the materials would sell for?

Alchemy can be nice on a second character, making pots you can use. You have to have someone higher gathering the herbs however, or you're gonna fall behind. Inscription is a little different, in that you have to research your minor glyphs, and it is on a 20 hour cooldown... no power leveling later if you want to make and sell those. The scrolls are somewhat useful, but they do not stack (though will stack with potions). The scrolls of recall (15 minute cooldown hearths) require an inscription skill to use (like lot of engineering things).

So my final suggestion... take skinning and herbalism, and inscription or engineering on a 2nd or 3rd toon if you want to play with it. Engineering has bombs, great for any toon with less then stellar damage (which isn't many now.. holy priest, resto shammy maybe?) Skinning gives you increased crit, which helps everyone, and herbalism a small heal over time, which even works in druid forms.

[prion]

my view is this:
1. pick a crafting profession if it looks fun, not because someone told you it will make money (b/c that can change drastically)
2. every character should have a gathering profession, and tailoring and enchanting don't count as gathering.

[Alaris Mystique]

Cool...

The suggestions I'm getting really fit in well with what I wanted to do anyway, so it's great.

Basically, I'll be a gatherer on most characters, except for the profs that sound interesting to me, especially the things I cannot get otherwise... but I'll buy AH if I can instead.

[Froggelet]

Yes, me again...

But you've been so much help, how could I not ask more questions? (thanks)

1) I was playing in the crossroads area with my troll hunter, and I ended up playing alongside a level 25 gnome. We did most of a cave, side by side. Then it dawned on me... a gnome? Slightly higher-level than me? So in the same lines as my travelling thread, could I get to alliance areas with my low-level horde chars, and vice-versa? If so, what do I look for, and what are the risks if any?

2) I only recently starting playing around with professions, so I read up on them. My general understanding is that (a) gathering professions are usually easier to use to generate money, and (b) crafting professions give you goodies early and cheap. But to be honest, I'm too action-oriented to want to spend too much time trading. So if gathering is good enough gold, then I can live with not producing. The one exception is engeneering, which gives you cool shades you can't get otherwise. Am I missing something?

3) Death sickness. Apparently I can't avoid it just by logging on my other chars for a few minutes. Is there an easy way to get rid of it?

Thanks

Well, OK..... yes, you can take your lower level Horde into 'sort of' Alliance areas. There are zones like Stranglethorn Vale, Swamp of Sorrows, Tanaris, that are contested areas and have both Horde and Alliance settlements and characters. Chances are that unless you start trouble there you'll have no problems. But if you go into Elwynn Forest and Stormwind or those purely Alliance areas, you're not going to fare very well.

Gathering makes gold. You can sell off a stack of leathers or minerals or herbs and make quite a bit (try to put it on the AH on Thursday evening, then it stays on over Friday and Saturday evenings when sales are good).

But I have to say that Engineering, while it costs you a bundle to pursue, is really amusing and you can make great stuff with it. A lot of it you can put on your engineer character and use, some you can sell. Selling is a bit limited in that much can only be used by other engineers of various levels. And it will cost a lot along the way to buy your character some of the supplies he needs. The bombs and other explosive things are a great help, though. And eventually, if you skill up and have a fair amount of gold, you can make that great motorcycle that attracts so much attention.

If one of my guys has resurrection sickness, that's when I take him back to the inn, get off the game screen with alt/tab and go do something else on the computer, write an e-mail or look up a game website I've wanted to find. While I'm doing that (and it isn't hard to kill ten minutes), his resurrection sickness wears off.

[Wintrow]

Just be sure never to take Herbalism and Mining together. They both require you to activate Track Herbs/Track Ore. And you can't dual-track (yet). This is also a problem for hunters, so my hunter has Skinning/Enchanting.

Enchanting to easily disenchant soulbound stuff.

[Alaris Mystique]

If there are no quests waiting for me if I'm in the wrong areas (i.e. alliance if I'm horde or vice-versa), then there's no point to go through the trouble. I like questing.

As for gathering, thx for additional info. The tracking thing is certainly something I'd have to consider.

[Froggelet]

If there are no quests waiting for me if I'm in the wrong areas (i.e. alliance if I'm horde or vice-versa), then there's no point to go through the trouble. I like questing.

As for gathering, thx for additional info. The tracking thing is certainly something I'd have to consider.

I think (and someone can verify this) that the first time you find areas featuring quests for both factions is when you're level 58 or better and in Outland. I don't recall finding anything of that kind before I took a character there.

[dgrampa]

I think (and someone can verify this) that the first time you find areas featuring quests for both factions is when you're level 58 or better and in Outland. I don't recall finding anything of that kind before I took a character there.

No, STV for one, has quests for both factions out of booty bay and nessingwary's camp. Gadgetzan in Tanaris has quests for both factions. Winterspring's goblin town (Everlook?) has quests for both as well. They also added a town in Theramore that has quests for both. Those goblins (and Nessingwary), they don't care what your faction is.

[clevins]

Agreed on profs. I'd take skinning and either herbalism or mining. Skinning because you will kill ungdly numbers of beasts so the skins are literally at your feet. IN fact, I'd take skinning on every low-level toon. Remember, you can drop professions later.

Mining or herbalism... both give you stuff that sells well. You wil make much gold. However, as I think we've talked about in the past, the NEED for gold in WoW is pretty minimal. Make sure you can afford your mount at 30 and your epic mount at 60. Repair gold I got from selling gray items to vendors and the gold I looted. You don't need to buy much off the AH for gear - quests will give you nice stuff for the most part.

[Froggelet]

No, STV for one, has quests for both factions out of booty bay and nessingwary's camp. Gadgetzan in Tanaris has quests for both factions. Winterspring's goblin town (Everlook?) has quests for both as well. They also added a town in Theramore that has quests for both. Those goblins (and Nessingwary), they don't care what your faction is.

Aha. Evil Goblins (s'pose it doesn't seem that way to Horde). I've never had a Horde character on the server I'm on and the only one I created on another server is too low level to get to those places.

[semiiramiis]

Aha. Evil Goblins (s'pose it doesn't seem that way to Horde). I've never had a Horde character on the server I'm on and the only one I created on another server is too low level to get to those places.


They're not evil, they're neutral, offering quests to both factions. Another neutral vanilla wow faction of note is the Argent Dawn, who give quests in the plaguelands. Also the Thorium Brotherhood is another neutral faction found in Vanillaland.

[mmorpg man]

goblins only care about money, they don't care which faction they get it from, as long as they get it, its a very good system.

[Froggelet]

They're not evil, they're neutral, offering quests to both factions. Another neutral vanilla wow faction of note is the Argent Dawn, who give quests in the plaguelands. Also the Thorium Brotherhood is another neutral faction found in Vanillaland.

Good grief, I was only joking. Has everyone's sense of humour died here? :rolleyes:

[waflob]

If there are no quests waiting for me if I'm in the wrong areas (i.e. alliance if I'm horde or vice-versa), then there's no point to go through the trouble. I like questing.

The only real reason to do anything like this would be for the explorer achievement and title. If this is of no interest, then skip it.

[mmorpg man]

there are exceptions to this though, for example as an alliance warlock, you will have a quest at level 20 to get 1 of your demons (the succubus) which will require you to go to the barrans, which is mostly a horde area

[Wintrow]

And again for the Felhunter

[semiiramiis]

Good grief, I was only joking. Has everyone's sense of humour died here? :rolleyes:

I got it. I didn't want the new player who's asking the questions to misinterpret the answer, however, and decided to make it perfectly and non humorously clear. I remember being such a noob that I was afraid of the npcs in Thorium Point because they were dwarves and dwarves automatically attacked me...period. The thought of a neutral faction had never occurred to me.

[Alaris Mystique]

Agreed on profs. I'd take skinning and either herbalism or mining.

btw, is it worth the bother to sell via AH, or can I just dump my stock on NPCs? I'd personally rather spend more time in the field killing stuff than trading, even if I get somewhat less gold.

The only real reason to do anything like this would be for the explorer achievement and title. If this is of no interest, then skip it.

*skipped*

there are exceptions to this though, for example as an alliance warlock, you will have a quest at level 20 to get 1 of your demons (the succubus) which will require you to go to the barrans, which is mostly a horde area

And again for the Felhunter

And my warlock is Blood Elf! Woot!

I got it. I didn't want the new player who's asking the questions to misinterpret the answer, however, and decided to make it perfectly and non humorously clear. The thought of a neutral faction had never occurred to me.

Thanks.

I've actually played WC3 before, so I have some lore background. That, and aggressive monsters have their names in red.

Besides, goblins are evil because they are motivated by pure greed. Horde are just, well, an alliance of mis-understood monsters. My Shaman is a very nice cow if you get to know her. My undead chose to be a priest because he wanted to help others. See? Please don't discriminate against the furry and slimy and decaying. :laugh:

[Dhoum]

btw, is it worth the bother to sell via AH, or can I just dump my stock on NPCs? I'd personally rather spend more time in the field killing stuff than trading, even if I get somewhat less gold.

You'll get a feel for what sells well on the AH and what doesn't. Sometimes it's better to sell to a vendor, sometimes not. I'd recommend getting an addon (from Curse.com) called "Auctionator" which makes selling a reasonably painless process. It's important to bear in mind that the Auction House in WoW is very different to that in, say, EverQuest where you have to be active in the Bazaar in order for players to buy from you. In WoW, you put your items up for sale and the money is posted to you when someone buys it. If the item doesn't sell, the item itself is posted to you. Generally I have a trader character who doesn't level but waits by the postbox in Thunder Bluff (Orgrimmar or Silvermoon are equally good choices) or The Exodar (or Ironforge) to whom my adventuring characters post items for sale. The trader alt also has the advantage of an additional bank account should you feel the need for more slots.

To answer an earlier question about zones with quests for both factions, about the first I can think of is Ashenvale (to a lesser extent Stonetalon) which has major quest hubs for both Horde and Alliance. The Barrens has Ratchet and Wailing Caverns as neutral quest hubs and is probably the lowest level multi-faction area, though it doesn't have a dedicated Alliance settlement so is only nominally multi-faction (and is considered Horde territory on PvP servers making it very perilous for Alliance to quest there).

[clevins]

The rule of thumb is to sell grays to the vendor. Never AH them. White items are, usually reagents for some profession - some of these are worth enough at the AH that it's worth selling there. Remember the AH takes a deposit and if your item doesn't sell you lose that deposit... so the issue is partially "If I have to relist the item a couple of times before it sells, does the price minus 2-3 deposit fees still come out a lot ahead of vendoring?"

Green items and above are *usually* worth AHing... but there's another route you can take - disenchant them. Take enchanting on one of your toons and DE the greens. Enchanting mats are free to list (no deposit) and can obviously be used to skill up enchanting. HOWEVER... check to see what the AH value of the green is. Some greens are good fits for certain classes (of the Monkey, Bandit - good for rogues for example). Some aren't good for any classes really (Whale, etc). And, obvisouly, check to see if a green drop is a good fit for one of your toons.

[Cattleya]

One thing that I found to be very useful for dealing with items that might be worth putting on the AH is to send them to a dedicated auction toon. That way, when I hit a town, I can just mail out all of the stuff I've collected and then get back to questing. I can then deal with listing stuff on the AH at my leisure without having to worry about running out of bag space while questing. That also means that if auctions don't sell, they aren't coming back to your main toons, so they aren't clogging your mailbox if you don't have the time to deal with them immediately.

[clevins]

One thing that I found to be very useful for dealing with items that might be worth putting on the AH is to send them to a dedicated auction toon. That way, when I hit a town, I can just mail out all of the stuff I've collected and then get back to questing. I can then deal with listing stuff on the AH at my leisure without having to worry about running out of bag space while questing. That also means that if auctions don't sell, they aren't coming back to your main toons, so they aren't clogging your mailbox if you don't have the time to deal with them immediately.

^^ This. I really wish I'd known about AH/bank toons sooner. Not only for what Cattleya mentions above, but for extra storage.

Remember, the bank toon gets its own bank slots and can equip bags like any other toon... so if you get some netherweave bags (16 slotters) you can add 200 or so slots to that toon. Start by equipping those - 80slots or so right there. Put 16 slotters in the first 2 or 3 bank slots (the first couple are very cheap). you'll be at 120 slots or so pretty fast. That's great for holding mats, etc.

[mesonm]

^^ This. I really wish I'd known about AH/bank toons sooner. Not only for what Cattleya mentions above, but for extra storage.


It gets even better if one of your toons pays the small guild fee and forms its own guild, and buys a first guild tab at the bank...

Roughly 100g, for 98 extra bank slots.

[Cerberus]

The main point of having a character to handle things that posisbly could sell or you might want for later is that you only need a mailbox and a vendor to empty your bags and get on with the leveling. Going to the AH to list everything that might sell every time your bags are full is a very inefficient, not to say boring. If you don't want to bother with addons make sure you search for the item you are about to post at AH to get an idea what price to list it at.

There's not really that much point to taking up enchanting on an alt anymore. After a while you will need to increase your enchanting skill to be able to disenchant the higher level gear that drops and at some point that alt will have to level up to be able to train enchanting at a higher level as well. Back in the day any level 5 character that took up enchanting could disenchant any bind on equip item regardless of skill. These days it probably will cost you more than you gain in the end.

[Froggelet]

I use my Mage as my bank/AH alt. I can continue to play him, but teleport him back to SW or Ironforge, take care of the sales, and then hearthstone him home. He's got all the bank bags and it seems so far to work quite well.

[Alaris Mystique]

I don't need extra storage, so selling as I go sounds like a good option.

However, having a AH char sounds like a great idea, so I'll either make one, or just make sure I have one char on each server at AH at any time (should be easy enough).

[Froggelet]

I don't need extra storage, so selling as I go sounds like a good option.

However, having a AH char sounds like a great idea, so I'll either make one, or just make sure I have one char on each server at AH at any time (should be easy enough).

You probably will, eventually, need extra storage space. How you arrange that is up to you. But if you have four or five alts all gathering and sending their items to the AH guy, he'll need a place to keep them until it's the right time to put them on the AH (it's worthwhile to pick and choose the days you put things on, also to keep close track of increases in prices that will benefit you). All this helps to keep the gathering alts' bags relatively empty as well as their banks.

[Alaris Mystique]

You probably will, eventually, need extra storage space. (it's worthwhile to pick and choose the days you put things on, also to keep close track of increases in prices that will benefit you)

I'm not as dedicated to trading as you are.

My main goal when I log on is to spend time killing foes, and doing quests. I like the concept of an economy as a mini-game, but truth is, I didn't buy WoW to play the market.

Selling as I go is good enough for me, even if I get somewhat less than a dedicated trader would. Easy rules of thumb are good enough for me. I basically need just enough money so that I can afford what I need to keep playing.

I'm also not planning to twink or to get prestige items. Bare necessities are good enough for me.

[clevins]

I'm not as dedicated to trading as you are.

My main goal when I log on is to spend time killing foes, and doing quests. I like the concept of an economy as a mini-game, but truth is, I didn't buy WoW to play the market.

Selling as I go is good enough for me, even if I get somewhat less than a dedicated trader would. Easy rules of thumb are good enough for me. I basically need just enough money so that I can afford what I need to keep playing.

I'm also not planning to twink or to get prestige items. Bare necessities are good enough for me.

I'm like you in that I don't care about the gold/economy aspect. That said, vendoring things that can easily bring 5-10x that price by being auctioned seems... wasteful. Here's what I do:

1) vendor grays and whites. Some whites can be AHed, but it's iffy enough that I don't bother.

2) use Auctioneer or Auctinator and AH green drops and blue and purple items if you get them. At lower levels, AH greens once... if they don't sell and your price was close to the low price when you posted it, vendor or DE (ppreferably DE).

3) Use the AH toon to hold gathered mats (herbs, ore, leather) until you have full stacks, then AH those. DO NOT VENDOR. That's just silly. This will be your main source of gold.

4) If you get intrigued by a crafting profession, use the AH toon to hold gathered mats that support it.

5) Send most gold to your AH toon. Keep enough on your questing toons to pay for repairs and incidental supplies (arrows for a bow, etc).

6) Clean out the AH bank every once in a while.

7) This varies, but I usually either start or end a playing session on my AH toon... I check mail to get proceeds from auctions that sold (or the items back from ones that expired), I grab stuff my questing toons have sent and I post items that meet the above criteria. All of that takes, usually, 10 minutes or so. You don't have to do it daily, but I'd do it 2-4x per week at least.

[Froggelet]

I'm not as dedicated to trading as you are.

My main goal when I log on is to spend time killing foes, and doing quests. I like the concept of an economy as a mini-game, but truth is, I didn't buy WoW to play the market.

Selling as I go is good enough for me, even if I get somewhat less than a dedicated trader would. Easy rules of thumb are good enough for me. I basically need just enough money so that I can afford what I need to keep playing.

I'm also not planning to twink or to get prestige items. Bare necessities are good enough for me.

I'm not dedicated, really. In fact, I've not had great success with the AH on my realm. It's unreliable and often hard to sell things there. Still, it gives me a useful place to make a bit of gold off the various gathered items and that always helps. The only crafting profession I've developed along the way that's useful as such is Alchemy, which helps me to make potions I can use or sell. The AH is really a sideline for me. You need gold for mounts and that sort of thing and the AH can help with that.