So your best buddy is playing on another server and you think its time to join him or her and transfer your main character to that server; but here’s the rub: you have amassed ill-gotten gains of several hundred thousand gold and would desperately like to take it with you to the new server. Except that Blizzard throws a spanner in the works and caps your transfer to 50k. So what can be done?

This post is part of June Topic for Cold’s Gold Blogging Carnival which is now hosted by Selltacular and discusses “How Would You Bring All of Your Gold to a New Server on One Toon?”

Now as a gold capped player for a number of years I have been thinking about this problem for a while now. In a recent JMT Podcast Episode 05 I mentioned to my guest gold blogger, Cold, that my server was shrinking – at least as far as the gold economy was concerned – and I was thinking of transferring to another, higher population server where the economy was more active.

Blizzard’s Gold Capped Transfers

But here’s the rub, Blizzard in their wisdom imposes a gold cap on server transfers to a maximum of 50k at level 80+. Now it would be nice to transfer my main alt which is just shy of One Million Gold (fluctuates between 900k – 1100k) but it would be sad to leave all that gold behind. I would choose my main alt because he has Alchemy and Herbalism as his two main professions and these trades have been good to me over the years and would also do well on a higher population server.

More Gold In Bigger Bags

Now Blizzard doesn’t put a limit on what’s in your bags when it comes to the transfer so I would take the advice of the Horde who tell me that when it comes to Server Transfers : da bigger da bags da better! So my strategy would be to find high value items or material and fill my big bags and bank before the transfer. In effect I’m converting my liquid gold to valuable commodities that can be resold on the new server.

Server Arbitrage

Now there may be a gold making opportunity in terms of server arbitrage, depending on where you transfer from and where you transfer to. This is because Every Server is its Own Economy and prices for items will vary server to server and between markets. Arbitrage, in this context, simply means the opportunity to make gold based on the difference in price of an item between servers. So before I select my items to buy I first need to check its price on the new server using The Undermine Journal. For arbitrage to work I need the price of the item on my server to be low compared to the price on the server I’m transferring to. That way I’ll make a great profit – provided the demand is there.

Buying High Ticket Items

But what to buy? Well I would start with those high ticket items that are always in demand – at least in this patch 5.3 – on many servers. I might, for example, devote several bank bags full of stacks of Living Steel. I prefer crafting material over things like Mounts or Pets as I know there is strong demand for this material. On most EU servers Living Steel sells for around 500g a bar but can go as high as 800g a bar on some servers. High valued Mounts and Pets, on the other hand, may take several weeks to sell as demand fluctuates widely.

Alchemy of Gold Making

Now as I’m transferring my Alchemist I might want to ensure that he has a good supply of material for crafting. To keep it simple I might devote a bank tab full of stacks of Trillium Bars. My Alchemist could make a great profit transmuting Trillium over time to Living Steel. I’d also have a bank tab of stacks of Golden Lotus for transmuting Uncommon Pandarian Gems to Rare Pandarian gems. Depending on the server economies, it may even be possible to simply sell the mats on the Auction House and take a profit from the arbitrage.

Virtual Realms in Patch 5.4

Now If you have been listening to the JMT Podcast I predicted that it was only a matter of time before Blizzard amalgamated the Auction Houses across Realms. In Patch 5.4 PTR notes Blizzard announced such a concept which they are calling the Virtual Realm:

Blizzard’s Definition of A Virtual Realm Virtual Realms “Virtual Realms are sets of realms that are fused together, and will behave exactly as if they were one cohesive realm. Players on the same Virtual Realm will be able to join guilds, access a single Auction House, join arena teams and raids, as well run dungeons or group up to complete quests.”

Now this changes everything and in my next post I’ll explain what affect this will have on the WoW Gold Economy. But for now, I think I’ll hold off with my server transfer and wait for Patch 5.4 and Virtual Realms. That is when the fun begins – at least for those that play the Auction House and those that have bought my Auction House Secrets will have an edge.