Do most of you keep all your toons on one side or the other on a realm or put some on alliance some on horde?  I moved to WoW from EQ2 where factions could talk and trade so this is all a bit new for me.  I was thinking one side for crafting reasons but didn't know if crafting was that big of a reason.

Thanks for any advice!

You can only play one faction on each server, so if you have a horde character on a specific server, you can't create an alliance character there.

I know that is the case on PvP servers but on PvE you can.

The only thing your side really effects, is the quests(with their rewards) that you participate in when leveling, and who you communicate with -since you cant talk to the other side-.

-Crafting is the same on either side -you just get to talk to different trainers-

-Some areas are also more quest oriented with certain sides -like the barrens-

-Also there are a few neutral towns as well that alliance and horde can take the same quests (you cant party up together, but you just might find yourself in STV waiting on a spawn with them cause you need it to)

My main concern is if I put a few toons alliance and a few horde and have a few crafters that they could take advantage of me making them things.  Other wise I would have to raise crafters on both sides I would think.. Or is there some broker or auction house that both sides can buy and sell things through?

Originally posted by x82nd

My main concern is if I put a few toons alliance and a few horde and have a few crafters that they could take advantage of me making them things.  Other wise I would have to raise crafters on both sides I would think.. Or is there some broker or auction house that both sides can buy and sell things through?

yes there is a neutrel auction house in taranas.

Thank you for that info.  Is that auction house seperate as far as only being able to see things that are posted in that city or will it see things from the standard AH?  What level do you need to be at to reach this city?

I feel better with this knowledge.  I can now have alliance and horde on the same server and have my crafting efforts benefit each side.  Thank you so much for posting.

Originally posted by x82nd

Thank you for that info.  Is that auction house seperate as far as only being able to see things that are posted in that city or will it see things from the standard AH?  What level do you need to be at to reach this city?

I feel better with this knowledge.  I can now have alliance and horde on the same server and have my crafting efforts benefit each side.  Thank you so much for posting.

 

just that auction house.

Its in the Taranis zone (40+) in the goblin run Gagetzan town

Originally posted by x82nd

My main concern is if I put a few toons alliance and a few horde and have a few crafters that they could take advantage of me making them things.  Other wise I would have to raise crafters on both sides I would think.. Or is there some broker or auction house that both sides can buy and sell things through?

Ok, this is a long post, but I'm trying to give you useful information about crafting/trading as well as answer your question, so go ahead and read it if you want.

Yeah, there are neutral AH's in the goblin cities in the old world to sell items across faction.  I know somebody is going to disagree with me about this, but I think it's fair to warn you about a few things.

First off, crafted gear (by gear, I mean stuff you actually equip, like weapons or armor) tends to be the worst stuff.  You can easily get by with quest rewards and drops from 1-70, and at 70, crafted gear becomes crap.  The only _remotely_ useful crafted epics are BoP, which means you can make a decent item, but you have to use it yourself.  Even then, these BoP crafted epics are just temporary for most characters.  So most of the stuff that professions end up selling are either raw materials, augments to gear, or consumables for raiders.  People can pretty easily get these things on their own AH, and they're not going to run out to a neutral AH to acquire them.  The only real exception is twink gear, but crafted twink gear is usually common on AH's, anyway, and margins are slim.  It's the drop stuff that's rare.

The biggest sellers on neutral AH are things which are impossible for one faction to acquire.  For instance, lets say I'm Horde, but I want a white kitten for a pet because I'm a sensitive orc.  Little Timmy only sells to Allies.  Or lets say I'm Alliance, but I want a black tabby, which you only get by killing certain Dalaran mobs.  Only Horde can kill them.  _Even then_, many people have a racket on selling these on PvE servers, so it's possible to get items exclusive to the opposite faction on your faction's AH (more on this later).

Honestly, I don't think WoW is the game for a crafter, but if you want to make money through trading or crafting, let me suggest a few paths.

Tailoring gives the most endgame-viable crafted gear (some of that stuff is equivalent to T5/T6).  As a bonus to that, you can sell your unused cloth cooldowns (rare types of cloth that can only be made on a timer), and you can make bags.  Bags are always in demand, but competition is usually fierce, so margins are relatively slim for the cheaper bag types.  For the best craftable bag (20 slot), you require cooldown cloth to make it, but margins are pretty solid.  You also need a specific specialization to make this kind of bag, which you may not take depending on your class.

The profit margins on LW-skinner are actually better than people think, even though LW makes utterly terrible gear.  The trick is selling the rarer forms of leg armor (nethercleft and nethercobra) at massive premiums and selling raw leather (no idea why it sells, but it does for ridiculous amounts). 

Engineering can be fun for a crafter.  You can get a bit of gold making rare noncombat pets.  The best gun, despite being useless except as a tank gun, and even then only for starting tanks, sells for a pretty solid profit margin.  Scopes also sell for great margins.  Mainly, though, you get cool mounts.  You get a flying machine like the gnomes in WC2.  Pretty nice shit, imo.  In Wrath, if the rumors are true, you get a motorcycle with a sidecar, which looks pretty badass.  On top of that, you get cool novelty items.  The rocket launcher is great.  Jumper Cables aren't a joke, either.  It lets classes raise that can aggro drop during a wipe.  This greatly hastens wipe recovery.

Enchanting, alchemy, and jewelcrafting give steady sources of income.  Enchanters supply enchantments and the materials for enchanting, the latter of which is always in demand.  Alchemists make various important raid consumables.  JC make jewels you plug into slotted items to buff them.  These do come with a downside.  Only take these if you're a raider, since many of the best recipes drop only in raid instances and can't be sold or traded.  Even if you are a raider, you'll have to grind for some recipes.  Many recipes also happen to require exalted with factions that are difficult to rep up with.

Do not underestimate fishing and cooking.  I make money way faster doing these than I do with dailies.  You have to know the most profitable runs, though, and you have to be fast (meaning you have to have an epic flyer and know exactly how the spawns work in your area).  Cooking and fishing are also free professions, meaning you can take those on top of your regular two.

BS, imo, is the worst off.  The best epic gear from BS is arguably useless.  Even the final forms of the epic BoP weapons for the weaponmaking specialties are crap compared to the raid or PvP gear you'll have by the time you get that many nethers.  In addition, you have very little to offer that other people need.  Sharpening stones, locks, keys, rods.  Rods are basically one-time expenses for enchanters, so demand isn't booming for those.  The rest don't see much demand.

Druids are at a big advantage for many gathering professions like herb or mining, since they can stay in their flight form.  This means they can just fly off if attacked, making life pretty easy while gathering, plus it's faster as they don't have to mount/dismount.  I wouldn't go druid only for this.  I'm just saying that, if you do go druid, strongly consider herb/alch or mining/something.

I mentioned a racket above for faction-exclusive items, and now I'll tell you.  Many people love their noncombat pets and novelty items.  I'm one of them.  You can actually make pretty solid money just getting an alt on the opposite faction, loading up his bags with pets, then taking him to a neutral AH and selling them for 1c each (basically nothing).  Then, you either use a second account or get a trusted intermediary to buy them all (you can't buy items from another character on your account, even if it's cross-faction), and you sell them on your main's AH at a huge premium.  The trick is to only sell a few at a time at a high premium.  You'd be surprised at how much people will spend on bullshit.  There's a whole gang of people out there who don't raid and make tons of money via crafting, so they have zero expenses and all of their ingame income is disposable.  I'll use myself as an example.  I spent 1600 on buying the Cenarion flyer, plus several thousand on top of that for Armaments because I was too lazy to do SV anymore (sick of that instance).  That's for a mount that is exactly the same as the three other epic flyers I have (drake, windrider, and ray), except it looks different.

I'm sure there is tons of stuff I'm forgetting to mention, but you can consider this a bit of a heads-up.

Thank you so so much for that in depth post.  This not only makes me feel better about having toons on each side of the fence but I had no clue about crafting to that extent.  I am used to making master crafted armor every 10 levels for my alts in EQ2 and that being a huge twink....  it will be odd not to do that once i am established but probably for the best.