It's New Year's Eve and time to put some of my thoughts down about what's happened here at Power Word: Gold this year.

While there has been some fairly drastic changes in the area of gold-making itself due to the release of Warlords of Draenor this post will mainly focus on what's been going on with the blog specifically.

I normally try not to talk too much about the blog itself as I like to let the details be background to the content these end-of-the-year posts are when I allow myself to be a bit more introspective. Read on for more.

I'm proud to announce that I have created a new gold-making forum at BidFiddlers.com. I've been contemplating starting a gold-making forum ever since I started the blog back in 2010 but never felt the time was right.

After 4 years of blogging, I finally feel comfortable starting my own gold-making forum and I hope you'll enjoy it. Read on for more on why I started them and what I hope to accomplish with them.

Just a quick note to say that Power Word: Gold will likely hit 3 Million all-time pageviews in the next few days.

That's crazy.

Also, Blizz pulled me back in with 7 free days of game time. I'll be logging in for a few hours tonight to poke around. (Now if the patch would just finish!)

Update: Boom!

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There are a lot of big life changes happening around the Younkin household that will require much more of our time.

While all these changes are positive (don't worry) it does, however, mean that we will have little-to-no time to properly maintain Power Word: Gold in the foreseeable future.

With that in mind we'll be taking time off from Power Word: Gold as well as World of Warcraft.

This isn't to say that Power Word: Gold is going away forever.

While we will likely be back at some point in the future (we want to stomp around Draenor as much as you do) we don't have any particular time frame for when we may return.

If/when we do return it will likely be in a much more relaxed capacity.

A huge thanks to everyone who has been with us over the last three years of Power Word: Gold. It's been a blast and we hope we've helped you learn to make gold in some little way.

If you would like to get a hold of us we will be periodically checking Twitter, Facebook and you can always email us directly at [email protected].

/hugs
-Jim Younkin

(While we're gone you can find lots of great gold-making information from the blogs listed on The World Of Warcraft Gold Blog Directory.)

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(This was posted in April 1st and was an April Fool's Joke. Did you really think we could leave WoW?!) This wasn't an easy decision and we've been debating it ever since we played the WildStar beta a week ago but we've made the decision to switch Power Word: Gold from a blog, podcast, and livestream about making gold in World of Warcraft to exclusively covering the WildStar economy.

We know this is a radical shift in the direction of Power Word: Gold but we think that WildStar is the first game in the 8 years we've been creating, playing and covering MMOs that has a real chance of being comparable to, if not more popular than, World of Warcraft and its economy. Read on for more details.

Episode 085 of The Power Word: Gold Podcast. We bring you the latest World of Warcraft gold-making tips, tricks and strategies.

In this episode your host Jim Younkin talks about working with limited time, running deal finding markets, Power Word: Gold anniversaries, and much more. And now… on with the show!

Episode 085:

[MP3] Download or play this episode directly.
[iTunes] Subscribe to The Power Word: Podcast directly in iTunes.
[RSS] Add the podcast to your RSS reader, podcast player or manually into iTunes.
[Archive.org] View this episode's page on Archive.org.

Full show notes after the jump.

We are proud to announce that the The Power Word: Gold Guide Volume I: Addons (formerly The Power Word: Gold Guide) has been updated to version 0.12.

This update includes a completely rewritten section on TradeSkillMaster that covers the recent TradeSkillMaster 2.0 release.

The update (free to previous purchasers) includes all new TradeSkillMaster illustrations and text. It has increased to 137 pages (up from 109) and we have been able to decrease the file size to 4.7MB (down from 7MB+).

We will be rolling out update information emails to all previous purchasers of the guide as time goes on.

If, however, you have purchased The Power Word Gold Guide Volume I: Addons (previously The Power Word Gold Guide) and would like your free update sooner rather than later email us at [email protected] from the email you purchased the guide with and request a free update.

Thanks again to all those who have purchased the guide. We can't wait to get your updates to you so you can start making gold with TradeSkillMaster 2.0!

If you haven't yet purchased The Power Word: Gold Guide Volume I: Addons there has never been a better time than now. Head over and purchase the guide at the The Power Word: Gold Store.

If you have any further questions about the guide or the update check the FAQ on the Store page and/or email me directly at [email protected].

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We (meaning April and I) are going to be moving soon and in order to give us enough time to prepare (isn't moving the worst!) as well as carve out a bit of time for a few other projects that that require special focus I'll be putting Power Word: Gold into "low-power" mode for the next month or so.

I do have some content that has already been created that will be released over the next few weeks. As for new content there will likely not be many updates until sometime in early to mid September.

I will will keep an eye on things like Twitter and Facebook but if things seem a bit quiet it is because we're busy doing fun stuff like packing boxes and cleaning out dust bunnies.

Have a great summer and we'll see you in September!

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Kaliope wrote a wonderful post talking about pricing for the new Reborn Blacksmithing weapons introduced in Patch 5.2.

Now that many players have enough Lightning Steel Ingots to craft the top item level 502 weapons the question becomes should they? Head past the jump for more.

Phat Lewts wrote:

"I just believe that Jim's argument is not compelling, and I know that I definitely would not want him to be my lawyer based on his definition of proof.  All he provides is circumstantial evidence at best, while throwing the word proof around as if it's meaningless." 

-"Proof of Jeweled Onyx Panther Duping" on Phat Lewt's Gold Blog

I now think evidence would have been a better choice of words.

Be sure to read the full post for more on Phat's reasoning as well as our original post.

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We had a really great post submitted by Erogoth which was posted on The Hatchery today (Making Gold Without Every Profession and Limited Startup Gold by Erogroth) and it got me wondering how many others were out there with great gold-making ideas hiding inside them.

We set up The Hatchery back in 2011 to make is as easy as possible for anyone to get their gold-making ideas published to a wide audience. Read on past the jump for more.

Episode 049 of The Power Word: Gold Podcast. We bring you the latest World of Warcraft gold-making tips, tricks and strategies.

In this week's episode your host Jim Younkin looks back over what's happened with Power Word: Gold in 2012, where it's going in the future and much more. And now on with the show!

Episode 049:
(Click the round "play" button next to the word "MP3" below to play in the embedded player.)
[MP3] Download and/or play this episode directly.
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Power Word: Podcast directly in iTunes.
[RSS] Add the Power Word: Podcast to your RSS reader or into iTunes manually.
[Archive.org] View this Episode's page on Archive.org.

Full show notes after the jump.

Just a quick note to let everyone know I'll be out of town for about three week during which time I will be away from my main gaming PC.

This means there will likely be no new livestreams and/or podcasts coming out during that time. New Power Word: Gold posts will likely be few and far between until I'm back (towards the end of November).

I will be trying to keep up with email, Facebook and twitter as well as posting archived livestreams on Power Word: Gold TV and Power Word: Games!.

If you have any questions or concerns during that time feel free to email me at [email protected]. I'll try to check it every few days.

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Each player has their own special ways of making gold in World of Warcraft. No two players are the same. No two servers are the same. This means that each of us walks our unique own gold-making path.

Since Mists of Pandaria is coming out in 5 days we thought it would be good to take some time to reflect back over our own gold-making journey through Cataclysm and pick out the top 5 most enjoyable techniques we used to make gold in World of Warcraft.

Head past the jump for our Top 5 most enjoyable gold-making techniques from World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

I was recently interviewed by Chase Jacobs about my gold-making endeavors. The full interview has now been posted on Chase's new site MMO Sentinel as well as at Examiner.com.

We really enjoyed the interview. Read on past the jump for a short excerpt and links to the full word interview.

I just wanted to make a quick note here to point people who may be interested in selling transmogrification gear to a post I just complied on The Hatchery.

The post compiles the best transmog shopping lists submitted to The Hatchery by Keelhaul, Farli and EpicPennyPouch along with links and Auctionator shopping lists which were added by myself.

If you've ever wondered what the best transmogrification items to sell were this is the last list you'll need (at least until Mists of Pandaria launches).

Head over to The Hatchery now to view The Definitive Transmog Shopping List Compilation.

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Just a quick note to let everyone know that Power Word: Gold has reached over 1 million pageviews!

The fact that people have come to look at content we've created over a million times is incredible. We're humbled.

A special thanks to all of you who have been a part of our lives this past year and a half. We couldn't have done any of it without you!

Here's to another million!

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When Oligopoly from Warcraft Econ contacted me about doing an interview about the pricing structure of my paid guide I'm not sure he knew what he was getting himself into. Nevertheless I was more than happy to answer his questions and surprised myself with how much I had to say about guide pricing, making real money from World of Warcraft, what I thought about the upcoming real-currency auction house in Diablo III and much more.

You can read the whole interview in the Warcraft Econ post entitled "Interview with Jim Younkin - Founder of Power Word Gold. On Gaming as a Profession, Gold Guides, and Diablo 3 RMAH"

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We are proud to announce that The Power Word: Gold Guide has been fully updated and is now current with the recent (Feb 2012) overhaul of TradeSkillMaster's user interface, new modules and new features. The Power Word: Gold Guide is now more useful than ever!

If you've been struggling to learn TradeSkillMaster the latest Power Word: Gold Guide is a great in-depth manual for doing nearly everything in the addon. We were lucky enough to have Faid (from Clockwork Riot) work along side us to update the TradeSkillMaster section of the guide and, while I'm not usually one to brag, the new TSM section turned out fantastic! Head to the Store to buy the guide now or read on to find out what else we updated.

Watch live video from jimyounkin on Justin.tv
This weekend I finally put some of the hard-earned PayPal dollars we've earned selling our guide to use and purchased a full version of XSplit Premium. We've been using the free beta version for a while now to do those cool multi-screen section videos the last month or so. (Download XSplit beta at XSplit.com).

Over this weekend we went ahead and created a proper twitch.tv account (http://www.twitch.tv/jimyounkin/) and started livestreaming. Over the weekend we did 20+ hours of livestreaming. We had a blast. Livestreams are far different than YouTube videos in that there is live interaction between myself and the audience. Head past the jump for a list of all the livestreams we did this weekend.