The days of gold guides for Warcraft are numbered. The times of referring to a book to tell you what to do in the game to make gold are coming to an end.

Let’s face it, reading a PDF document while playing is not really state-of-the-art is it? One minute you are playing, the next clicking on a pile of text trying to work out where to go to grind or farm materials, or what items might be cheap at the Auction house that day.

If you think about it, even the name “guide” is not really what you are after. If you climb a mountain for example a guide is someone who tells you the route and walks with you. Maybe telling you where it’s safe to camp and help carry the equipment.

Now I’m not knocking guides. They have played their role in the Warcraft economy, but their days are numbered. They really don’t cut it any more.

Some have seen this coming and have called the guides they make “systems”. Now I’ve seen these “systems” and let me tell you, they aren’t particularly good. A system is a procedure designed to achieve a result. The “systems” I’ve seen go along the lines of.

1 – Refer to the guide provided

2 – That’s it, please go back to step one

Sure, some have added a little bit of code here and there that you can cut and paste into the Warcraft macro GUI to speed up buying and selling. So what? Folks, here’s the thing. There are websites that give you this information free.

If it’s macros you are after, may I direct your attention to Wowwiki. Every possible macro for just about every possible event you can think of in the game. The hard bit is accessing them. Now follow closely. Ready? First you select the macro and “copy” then you go into your Warcraft interface and press “paste” got that? So “copy” then “paste”. Practice it a few times. Man If you bought a guide for auctioneer help and a few macros? You must feel a little sick now. You just paid for free inferior information. Ouch.

You want macros? Great! WoWwiki has a whole section with Warcraft macros, with examples of just about every one you can think of for every character type, race, profession and event in the game. You just copy and paste these straight into the Warcraft GUI. If you bought a “system” guide, then it will be a normal text document, with these two free elements added, then rebadged as a “system”. At least every one I’ve ever read has been like this. If you paid good money for this rehash of free information, then that’s gotta hurt. Sorry.

What Warcraft needs is a real system. Something where you press a button, and the inner workings of your servers’ economy gets ripped open.

Legal, safe, fully compliant with Blizzards terms and conditions. Yet powerful and simple to use. So simple anyone could be using it within five minutes.

Imagine, no more grinding, no more farming, no “messin’ and guessin’” at the auction house’ A quick install, then a real system that does everything for you.

To take a look at the WoW-C Project click here Or if you’d prefer just Click for free guides

I don’t know about you, but rolling a new character in Warcraft is always something I do with mixed emotions.

Sure I’m really looking forward to exploring the possibilities of a new class combination, but first I need to fix my mind. I have done this many, many times in the past. Do I want to do it all again?

Well, of course I want to. I could wait for all the changes that will come with Cataclysm of course, this will refresh the early levelling process no end.

However, once I actually get into the character generation screen, another problem. The characters themselves. They all seem so limited.

How dull and uninspired the preset character faces and styles are.

Rolling a human really brings it home to me. There seems very little choice, and what choice there is – is between characterizations that really do not appeal to me at all. I mean, this is a face and character I’ll be playing for hour after hour. It would be nice if it was an enjoyable spectacle.

Back in 2005, the limitations were excusable. Both the ability of computers to draw and render good facial expressions was more limited, then there was the issue of broadband speed being generally several factors slower than it is now, making the caching and uploading of many different facial designs an issue.

Another counter argument is that once people get to the level cap it’s all about the armour. I agree with that – but even that’s a shame. There is only one tier 10 BiS for each class/talent combination so you still end up with very similar looking characters at the end of the game.

Now there are any number of games, many by publishers with a fraction of the resources available to Blizzard, who let you customize everything right down to the shade of pink on your new characters nail polish.

So how about it then Blizzard, what about letting us design the style and look of characters we actually would like to play?

Sadly, having seen the trailers so far for Cataclysm, it isn’t something they are considering any time soon.

Free Warcraft Guides ready to download. Or contribute to this discussion at the Warcraft Information Exchange

It can seem a long process getting to level 80. Getting distracted with professions and running out of gold for equipment. Here are five good reasons why you should ignore all that, and push on to level cap.

1 – Warcraft is now all about the end game. There is so much content once you get there that you will wonder why it took you so long. Ilevel-200 gear is so \”last year\”.

2 – You can compete in full blown PvP. Sure there are battlegrounds at every level, but at level 80 they become massive fights with the latest in user controlled vehicles and the greatest rewards in terms of what PvP rep can buy you.

3 – Level 80 for the first time? Or doing it for the tenth? It\’s a great feeling. It\’s like a rite-of-passage. Now you have made it a whole new world opens up.

4 – Cataclysm? Heard of it? Well, if you want to get straight into the new end-game content, and be a competitor once the raids at level 85 begin, you need characters ready to go.

5 – Make gold. No matter what people tell you about getting gold, the whole process gets a lot easier when you have high level characters. Even doing a few quests for an hour will net you a couple of hundred gold pieces once you sell the stuff. Why go to all that hassle early in the game when all along just playing it properly, getting to level cap as quickly as possible was the best way to proceed?

Ok, the goals of being gold rich and levelling up sometimes seem to get in each others way. They shouldn\’t though. There are great new systems to help you succeed in both areas. Not old fashioned e-books and nonsense like that, but new great methods that let you get the gold you want, and spend your time levelling as efficiently as possible.

What are you waiting for? Time to level up.

Do you want best and fastest way to level in Warcraft? Take a look at Zygor\’s levelling guides . Or for help in every aspect of the game, click here for our Free Warcraft Guides

Balancing the need to progress in Warcraft while also making sure that you have enough gold to be effective is a balance. One that sometimes requires a little help to maintain.

Using the auction house would seem the obvious way. It is a market and you can leverage skills rather than time to do this.

There is a new Gold making system on the market that uses cross faction trading as the primary way of making gold. This is a system where you buy from Horde to sell at Alliance or vice versa. The differences in price at the different faction\’s auction houses can make this profitable if it is done correctly.

Sounds good? Hold on though. There are one or two very big drawbacks with this. Before you consider doing this you need to be aware of them.

Firstly you cannot buy from yourself at an Auction house using a single Warcraft account. You cannot, for example, post an item with a Horde character at a neutral auction house, switch to an Alliance character and pick the item up to market it at the Alliance auction house. The system won\’t let you.

You need a second account or a friend to assist you. A second account means actually paying Blizzard for two Warcraft accounts. Having a friend help you means splitting the profits, normally halving them. Not so profitable now is it?

You also need to be aware that market knowledge is essential. Flooding the market with one particular item will lower the price in the receiving market. It costs gold to put items on the auction house. If the item doesn\’t sell, then you lose the gold. There is the issue of storage and inventory to be considered. Ok, buy loads when it is cheap, but then you need to store it and drip feed it to market.

I\’m not saying there isn\’t a place for cross faction trading, of course there is. But you need to be aware of the potential drawbacks. Imagine buying a gold system, sitting down, and chapter one page one basically tells you to go and buy another Warcraft account and 30 days game time, that\’s a shock you don\’t want.

For a system that includes all the methods you need to dominate, without the need for a second account, then visit The Warcraft Advanced Gold Guide. Just want our famous free guides, then Free Warcraft Cataclysm Guides

3.3.2 and the Frostwing halls have been here for a week now. Apparently on some realm somewhere a guild has completed it in 10 man mode.

Less than a week after opening the new wing, and despite the restrictions on weekly attempts, the most progressive guilds have conquered the Lich King in his final bunker – in 10 man mode anyway.

Is that it then? Other guilds will follow in time. So a nine month wait for more content begins. Ok my lot have not finished yet, and it will be probably three weeks until we do, We\’ll then run it for another three or four weeks, taking us to say April at the outside. Then we are done. Game Over.

The wait for Cataclysm and 4.0 will be a long one. The most optimistic release dates are October 2010 or autumn (fall) 2010. Six months then with nothing to do.

I don\’t know about you, but I fully intend postponing payment to my Warcraft accounts for six months, returning when there is actually some progression to be made.

The idea of paying for six months of nothing does not really appeal to me. It shouldn\’t appeal to Blizzard either. They know only too well what progression is the lifeblood of their game. Ok there are PvP tasks to complete, many have PvE quests etc, but for a lot of players end game instancing is the key to the game. Not just any end game instancing either. We need to be doing something that pushes us forward in the game. Why isn\’t everyone up in arms about this?

Just a quick note for the guys at Blizzard. Get patch 3.4 out, or release Cataclysm. I reckon June 2010, July at a push. By then even the guilds full of rushed Hunters will have completed the game. The essence of Warcraft is constant progression. No progression? For many that\’s not an option they are prepared to pay for.

Comment on this, or just to download our now famous free Warcraft guides, go to the Warcraft Information Exchange If it\’s the best Warcraft gold making system you are after, then look at The Warcraft Advanced Gold Guide