You've got mail.

I am not Tom Hanks and Blizzard is definitely not Meg Ryan, yet I felt the same kind of joy when I received a little present from them in my inbox. The way it was formatted, it seemed like a phishing scam.

"Yea, right, I got into the beta. With the luck I've been having with beta invites so far, I am not getting invited until the last wave of invites is sent out." - is what came to my mind instantly. If there were no Annual Pass promotion and I hadn't signed up for it, I am certain I would never had gotten the invite.

But I got it! I am in the Mists of Pandaria Beta. Yes, I had to commit to an evil 1 year contract to get there, but still...

Hi, I am Taba, a new face in the World of Warcraft gold making business. I've been playing World of Warcraft since it's Vanilla days. Oh, was I young and thirsty for those shiny epics back then. Amassing huge piles of gold didn't even cross my mind at the time. But the game has changed since then. Immensely.

In the recent years, our good pal Ghostcrawler has taken our favorite no-lifers game and turned it into a relaxing, casual friendly slush. Or so would Taba from those times have thought. Today, I am much older, I have work, social life, obligations... Crawlzor has actually done me a favor.

Around the mid Wrath of The Lich King expansion my main character was all epics, shiny good looking uber imba and all the good stuff that goes with it, but it was really starting to take a toll on the real life, plus I was as poor as a church mouse ingame. Slowly but steadily, I started leaning towards the economy aspects of the game. Over the following few months, my main occupation in the World of Warcraft became sitting in the capital cities and playing the auction house. I created a whole new game for myself, a new way to enjoy Warcraft without having to invest 6+ hours a day.

Then I realized that I was not alone. The gold making community was already starting to build up. I came across numerous helpful and not-so-helpful bloggers, forums, podcasts which changed my whole prospective of the game. I am sure I will have the opportunity to mention them in the future.

Today I am sitting at 700k liquid gold and still rolling towards the gold cap. One might say I should have gone brain dead by now. The thing that many people don't realize is that gold making is extremely fun and always challenging. The economy is changing, you get new competitors, you always have to search for different markets. The truth is, it's much more challenging than raiding ever was. Bosses will be downed. If not, blizzard will nerf them. Economy is never going down.

So what is the point of all this? I guess I wanted to tell you a bit about myself and where I am coming from before I start this blog. I feel this need to join the community in a way other than as mere observer. I would like to share my thoughts, strategies, tools that I use and speculate about the future. And no better time for that than after being invited to the Mists of Pandaria Beta.

I am positive that my posts will help fellow Warcraft players. Most will learn how to get money for their repairs and mounts, but a few might actually discover a whole new game inside WoW, just like I did.

We'll see what happens...