Firstly, play on your own (in other words, don't join a party). Although there are benefits to joining a party, if you want to hoard all the loot for yourself, you'll need to go it alone. If you are in a party of five people, for example, you'll have to do five times the killing to reap the same amount of benefits The faster you kill, the faster you'll get “drops” faster, too: green items drop every forty kills, blue items drop once per every thousand kill, and the likelihood of a purple drop is, well, unlikely. In order to make sure you get all the drops to yourself, going solo is the only way to go.

Effective use of the Auction House is another way to gain lots of money. If you have lots of items to auction, it follows logically that your earning potential from those auctions goes up. To check the value of an item before you decide to send it to a vendor, press ALT-TAB and check the internet. There are lots of sites that offer a list of the AH median prices for a variety of items. Once you know the value, you can make an informed decision about selling that item. If the item is a valuable one, don't sell it to a vendor – bring it to the Auction House instead.

When you do put an item up for auction, make sure you stipulate a buyout price for the item (just like the “Buy It Now” price available on many eBay items). More often than not, if someone wants the item they will want to know that they can purchase it right away. Some players say that the recommended buyout price is three times the base price for green items, and pretty much whatever you want for purples and blues.

Learn how to play the bargain game. Browse the Auction House list for items going for much cheaper than they should be, buy them, and then re-list them for an appropriate price. Eventually, you'll make yourself a lot of GP that way.

Vendors will often offer rare items that will sell at auction for many times what you paid for them. These items will be indicated with a number in their icon, and often they will disappear for a set period of time after you buy them, so it's a good idea to make a list of who sells what. An example of this is the recipe for superior mana potion, which you can buy in the Undercity for 1.2 GP and sell it at auction for 6 GP. Another good buy is a Superior Healing Potion, which you can buy for 9 SP from a vendor and sell for 50 SP. These items are cheap to list in the AH, so you can list them multiple times and still come out with a profit.

In WoW, a Trade Skill equals profit. Whether you choose a creation/gathering combination or get two gathering professions, you can make money in each case. Trade skills like mining and herbalism, which you can acquire in the AH, have the potential to earn you lots of money. The key here is to understand what items will sell. After all, there's no benefit to being skilled at making something nobody wants, right? Again, the internet is a great resource for figuring out which items carry the highest price. Once you know that, gather the ingredients you need (herbs, etc.).

These are just a few tips for getting the most GP possible out of the game; it is by no means an exhaustive list. However, if you do these things you'll be well on your way to being able to buy whatever you need at those high levels!