New to the World of Warcraft

I just got back into the game and I have no where else to turn. I need a way of raising gold in as little time as possible I don't care if it's hard or not to learn/do. I need 5K gold for Artisan Flying.. I'm doing Northrend for the first time by myself. My druids flight form is not fast enough and I'm getting in all sorts of trouble.

If you do a bunch of quests non stop, and always pick up loot you get and vendor it, then you can make 5k gold in one day. Easy. I do it everytime I play.

Although, I'm level 90. Making 5k gold at levels 70-90 is super super easy.

Edit: Oh and if you pick up mining and sell ore (don't refine the ore, just sell it as you get it off the node) you usually can get a lot for that too. What kind will vary, but copper ore tends to sell really well because anyone starting a new character doesn't usually want to farm. That being said everyone does it so just selling copper ore won't always yield results. Sometimes you have to sell high level ores for a profit (anywhere really, I'd say most ores sell fairly well- although, really these days you could probably sell skins for a profit as well).

The only thing with selling AH stuff is you have to wait until someone buys which can be a couple days (lately i've been having people bid at min on the last day and wait for the time to expire).

Woof. It is rough jumping into a game with a really mature economy.

Basically you need to take advantage of the fact that you are doing old stuff that high level people don't want to be doing. The advantage there is that crafting materials are required from all the level bands of the game. Farming cloth to sell will probably help a lot. You should check the AH and see what herbal mats and mining mats go for. Lots of people will go tailoring/chanting, making things with cloth then DEing them to sell, but for lower level content there is a great chance you'll do better by just selling the cloth itself.

The truth though is that you might have to wait a while for artisan flying. You can definitely cap out without it, and you'll earn a ton of gold just by doing quests. Keep playing, and if you aren't flying fast enough for your taste then think of it as a carrot on the end of a stick.

5000 G isn't an insignificant amount of cash in the game even at this point, so it could be rough to find a wealthy benefactor willing to throw it away for nothing.

Crap, this is making me want to reactivate my account. I need to stop.

@cornbredx: I appreciate that.. I just hit 72 and halfway to 73, picked up about 300G+. I have herbalism (this character was a weed joke) on this druid, I'll take a look there. I'm getting pretty good at the flight -> drop from air -> prowl technique.

@tsang: There aren't really a lot of "easy" ways to raise that kind of cash, unfortunately. Getting your Enchanting skill high enough to the point where you can DE stuff from TBC dungeons and then soloing them and selling the shards will do you well, but that will take a long time to get through. The Auctioneer addon can help you figure out what you should be selling the Bind on Equip greens that you get for; some of them can be worth a lot of money, especially when you hit a new expansion and get a bunch of them from mobs. But yeah, if you don't have a friend to send you cash (what server are you on?) or a high-level alt character who can grind out some gold, it'll take you a while to get to 5k. But it's super worth it when you do.

Just be thankful that you didn't play when flying was first introduced. Flying was only a 60% bonus at first; now it's 150% by default. Flying used to be slooow until you had that 5k, and that took a crap ton of time to raise when TBC was the only game in town.

Keep in mind that you can pick herbs while in flight form, which is very convenient and why a lot of druids go with herb/alch.

There are plenty of ways to make gold in this game, but doing so as fast as possible can be a little tricky. I'm up to 150,000 gold, but I didn't rely on any one method. Being a well geared 90 helps because it means I can solo farm old content like cataclysm raids for thousands of gold if I get the right BoE drop. For example, there are shoulders from Blackwing decent that sell for 7k gold on the auction house on my server. You can get them off trash mobs and just keep resetting the instance and killing the same trash. Boring, but if you're lucky, you can make gold fast. Farming for transmog gear is probably the fastest way to make bulk gold quickly. People with a lot of gold are willing to spend big on items for transmogrification (basically gear to atheistically transform from what they're currently wearing). Being 73 really narrows what you're going to be able to farm, and honestly, I don't think it's worth it for you to get into that stuff until you're able to farm old raids/content faster. Knowing what items people desire, and which are useless also takes time/research to figure out, but it's something to keep in mind once you get to 90.

So to keep it more simple, stick with herbalism. Maybe pick up mining if you don't already have it, and pick herbs/mine ore as you level up. You'll make thousands from leveling as well, but it's not all going to come as fast as you seem to desire. Even low level mining can reap some healthy rewards as long as you're not on a dead server with a crappy economy. More people playing on your faction/server means more people to sell to.

Another option is to level up alchemy alongside your herbalism with the intention of making gold down the road at max level. Mining will net you more profit now, as people are always looking to buy ore (of all levels) to power level professions like Jewlcrafting, Engineering, and Blacksmithing. Alchemy wont make you gold now, but once its maxed out, you'll be able to sell flasks and potions to raiders who need them every night. Again, the more busy your server is, the more you're going to profit here. So mining for shorter term/easier profits, and alchemy for making a profit down the road.

If it's any consolation, having faster flying at your level is absolutely more of a convenience than a necessity.

Running groups and instances is the fastest way to collect money while rolling need on what is allowed. Doing LFR also works but that may take time.

@rorie: Sorry this took so long.. The server I'm on is Rexxar. My druid 'Sparkitup' is now level 78 and my mage 'Tsang' is 80. Once I'm done in Icecrown I'll be starting up the MoP content.

Also, thank you to everyone for your suggestions & tips.. I'm enjoying World of Warcraft a lot :D