One Bag of Gold Too Many
Posted on July 10, 2014
One Bag of Gold Too Many

Note: This originally appeared on my J Walker Bell website. I am adding it here now that I am going to back to using this blog.

If you’ve found your way to this blog and aren’t sure what World of Warcraft (WoW) or Warlords of Draenor (WoD) is then you are at the right place!

Still here? Great! Welcome to the World of Warcraft, and the adventures of my main character in this world, Wildshard (aka “Wild”), and his extended family of adventurers.

The following is a VERY brief synopsis, just to set the table. WoW is an MMO (Massively Multi-player Online game) released in 2004. I started playing in 2005, and since that first release WoW has released four expansions: Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria. The latest expansion, Warlords of Draenor, was released to beta players on June 26th. I was fortunate to get an invitation to help beta test the new release, and I’ll have a lot more to say about that in later posts.

I’ve been playing the game for nine years now, long enough to see the ebb and flow not only of the game, but of my own playing as well. Right now my playing is at a low ebb, focused mostly on maintaining a presence in the game and collecting gold for use when I decide to become more active. I have close to two dozen characters, three of which are at the maximum level of 90 (which, in WoD, will rise to level 100).
My banking player is named Happy, a goblin who loves his job. Happy works the Auction House, the equivalent of the stock market in the real world. He’s good at his job (if only I could use him in the real stock market!). He is so good that this morning I discovered that the mysterious game lords have set an upper limit on just how much gold he is allowed to accumulate. Happy is not happy at the moment, fuming like a dragon who’s been told he can’t add any more treasure to his lair. Happy, by the way, rides a two headed dragon when conducting business. His dragon isn’t very happy, either.

The solution to Happy’s problem isn’t likely to make him feel better. Wild and his family is going to become more active again, taking on the new challenges coming with Warlords of Draenor. That will require spending gold, likely a lot of gold, and Happy’s problem goes away. Happy hates spending gold even more than loves making it, but he was somewhat mollified by the opportunity to work the Auction House with a new expansion full of fresh goods and eager buyers.

I am still considering just how active I will be in the beta testing and final release of WoD. The game can be truly immersing and a real pleasure to play. My level 90 players – Wild, Fist, and Jocey – are very rusty from disuse and it will take some practice to get back into the swing of things. On the other hand, if there are some readers interested in starting with a fresh character and learning the game from the ground up, this would be a good window to try the game. There are a couple of ways to play for free, at least for a few levels, and even supply a guide to help get started.