Achievement Earned: Fifty Million Gold Earned on One Character Through Auctions!

Shadowsithe Ghoststrike has led an interesting, ongoing adventure in World of Warcraft. First raised under the Banshee Queen in 2009 on the US Role Playing server, Blackwater Raiders, the Forsaken Outlaw (then Combat) Rogue has not only been reanimated within the context of the Forsaken race, but was once even deleted and brought back from the grave of scrapped code. While solo players are not unheard of in the MMORPG, Ghoststrike has taken a long, meandering route from “clueless casual” to a Guild Leader, server giveaway host, raw material farmer and (fairly minor) gold baron. Only, “fairly minor” in this case amounts to some 50 million gold!

By casual terms, this likely constitutes a player with a lot of gold to throw around. The fact is, however, that while this is decent for a solo mat (material) farmer, many major Raiding guilds charge other players fairly large amounts of gold to run them through current Raids for various achievements, mounts...etc. Shadowsithe is in no way the wealthiest player - even on Blackwater Raiders, which is now merged with three other servers due to low populations on each realm. But earning 50 million gold on one character - through auction sales - is no small feat, and it has largely been an unintended journey!

After her deletion years prior, Shadowsithe Ghoststrike rose from the grave once again in 2014 - thanks to a helpful Blizzard employee who cast “Character Restoration”. Following her partner, Peakzilla, Shadowsithe was reintroduced to the splendors of Azeroth. Prior to this, she had played alone, only completing some of the endless numbers of quest chains abundant in World of Warcraft and battling beast, foe, and the despawn times of herbs and ore nodes already collected by other players. She had never had gold, mounts, or matching gear. The growing frustration of feeling like she was getting nowhere is what led to her deletion and desertion of the game for several years. Returning was an all-new experience.

Peakzilla tried to introduce her to various aspects of the game, but Shadowsithe has never been one to enjoy groups, preferring to go solo or only team up with a trusted partner. As such, much of her reintroduction in the Warlords of Draenor expansion consisted of questing with Peakzilla to level and gear up. It was then that he started informing her of helpful websites, such as the favored WoWhead. Shadowsithe began discovering all the different things she could work towards: achievements, titles, pets, and mounts. Current content couldn’t be soloed well, but she could start working through old expansions to earn reputations and the rewards unlocked through them. And so Peakzilla began the unenviable task of running Ghoststrike through instance after instance to grind out old reputations in a repetitious cycle.

After earning her first few mounts, Shadowsithe was hooked, often found pouring over lists of available mounts and planning which task to tackle next. However, it soon became apparent that to get some of the mounts she desired, she would have to start making gold. Then, the most expensive mount available through regular gameplay was the Grand Expedition Yak, priced at 120,000 gold. This mount included two NPCs (non-playable characters), one of which allowed the player to change the appearance of their gear for aesthetics. Honestly, Shadowsithe just wanted the mount to count towards one of the achievements for the number of mounts owned. The added bonus of bragging rights and to update her outfit as she received better gear didn’t hurt either. But how would she go about earning 120,000 gold?

In her early months back, she Googled which farms would be most profitable. She watched YouTube videos of other players to see how and where to farm. And so began her journey from clueless casual to an Auction House “Goblin” on a quiet RP server. She never imagined where she would be in less than seven years - or that she might still be involved with World of Warcraft.

As she began focusing on farming raw materials, she and Peakzilla began doing less together in Azeroth, though he remained her supportive, loving partner. He did not share the desire to collect most mounts, and in later years Shadowsithe had to insist that he come to a zone to get a typically popular and highly-sought mount. In those early days on her own, though, Shadowsithe underwent a huge learning curve involving the slightly intimidating world of selling items on the Auction House.

At first, as she learned where to farm various materials, Shadowsithe only posted small amounts of materials - 50-100 pieces of items that stacked to a maximum of 200. Quickly, she learned that such stacks sold better if she sold them cheaper than what was listed. She knew that she needed a small amount of gold to help her get started on her road to expensive mounts. What she didn’t know was how much she could have made through her Warlords Garrison, but by the time she’d found that out, it didn’t matter. Instead, she farmed and sold small amounts of regularly-used old content mats, and with the bits of gold she earned from the sales, she would buy any of the same mats that were being sold cheaper to combine with her next batch of farmed materials, lessening her time spent farming. Before long, she had one full stack of 200. And then another. She started selling more competitively-priced stacks.

Shadowsithe Ghoststrike had roughly 200 full stacks of materials that she would post on the Auction House when she earned the gold for her Grand Expedition Yak. It had taken some months of trial and error and patiently saving up the gold. Within the first year, she had 600 stacks. While she did purchase some smaller buyer’s wares to supplement or complete her stacks, she farmed most items herself, without alts, for years. With all the farming and achievements she was tackling, she couldn’t bring herself to put in the work to level an alt to max level - then 100. Luck favored her for most mounts: many that others sought for years dropped within 50 boss kills. Some, however, were beyond her reach.

One of the mounts that had captured her attention, but that she deemed unlikely to get, was the famed Swift Spectral Tiger. This mount is obtained through the WoW Trading Card Game - and it costs a small fortune in real cash. That didn’t stop Ghoststrike from frequently looking the mount model up and admiring the ghostly cat.

Peakzilla surprised her with one for Winter Veil (holiday season in-game) one year; where he got it and how much he paid - in cash or digital gold - remains a mystery to her. Spectre, as she named her glorious new mount, became a common sight in Dalaran during the Legion expansion. Peakzilla had given her this highly-prized collection of pixels, and she was determined that the mount be used enough to warrant whatever cost her love had paid for him. And with Spectre came the inspiration for Ghoststrike’s own guild: <Spectre and Shadow>.

Previously, both she and Peakzilla had been in a large guild, <Deja Vu>, and both had enjoyed it, but Shadowsithe deemed her ever-growing stockpile of supplies to be worth her own guild, where she would have the entire guild bank to store stacks of materials. Since she prized Spectre and used him frequently during some of her farms - such as for Starlight Rose - it only seemed fitting that the guild name reflect the two most often in-game.

Legion was a fun, crazy expansion. It was the first where Shadowsithe played from the start, and she was reasonably geared for the tasks she did throughout. It was also exhaustive - on top of the long storyline taking place in Suramar, Shadowsithe was perpetually always farming Starlight Rose in the zone. Building stocks for the herb was a task unto itself, as each plant only yielded one flower, versus others that yield 3-5. To try to slow her sales without stopping, allowing her time to stock up, she raised the prices to horrific levels; at one point, listing Starlight Rose at 255 gold/piece. But demand was high and supply low - even at such a price, stacks sold!

At the time, she and one other player were constantly farming, frequently both trying to collect at the same time, and neither seemed interested in teaming up. For Shadowsithe’s part, she was not savvy with anything involving groups, from chats to listings, and didn’t like when she had tried in the past and others had tried to dictate how she should farm - many farming groups require the Druid or Monk class for invite due to their large AOE attacks, and will not even accept a Rogue. Eventually her friendly competitor disappeared; she often wonders what happened to him, and sometimes misses racing his grounded Sky Golem on Spectre.

Buyers in Legion were not happy about the pricing of Ghoststrike’s wares, as she was made aware upon seeing a particular chat. In it, one player asked, “Why are the prices so high here?” To which, another replied, “A stupid, greedy Rogue.” With as many variable stacks as she posted and as few competitors as there were, it was clear to her that this comment was directed at her actions.

Shadowsithe had not intended to come across as greedy. She had been very proud of supplying the merged servers of Blackwater Raiders and Shadow Council with a variety and abundance of materials. At the time, she wanted to be a large, reliable seller with enough stock to sell in bulk, or at least buffer the effect of selling 10 full stacks in one sale (seriously, spent 6 hours farming materials, posted 10 stacks, and all 10 would sell in seconds in one go). The high prices of Starlight Rose were not for greed, but to slow the rapid selling, encourage more farmers to collect it, and bide time to restock. So the comment came as a hurtful shock, and she began seeking ways to price items more in line with other servers. Prices are often a bit high on low population servers - there’s few consistent buyers and even fewer reliable suppliers. But without any knowledge of what other servers sold at, Shadowsithe had no idea how much prices needed to drop. And so she finally became familiar with addons, some of which illustrated the “average” pricing at that time, and made adjustments.

A new, expensive mount appeared for sale in Legion: the Bloodfang Widow. Not only was this unique spider a then-colossal two million gold, but the Mad Merchant who sold it would only appear for an hour - at random. With 2,000 active stacks on AH, Shadowsithe knew it was obtainable, in time. The Merchant also sold a pet, the Celestial Calf, for an additional one million gold, and Ghoststrike made it the expansion’s goal to buy both.

Despite having a few alts now, Shadowsithe kept her auctions with her. Dividing them among the alts briefly had meant more hassle, as she had to switch to move things often and it was frustrating. However, it was taking longer and longer to repost that number of auctions on one character - this would not be sustainable forever….

Her Draenor Garrison was most useful for her endless reposting, as she outfitted it with a storehouse and auctioneer. Since reposting over 2,000 auctions took hours, she liked that she did not get in the way of other players at auctioneers in major cities. Still, because only so many stacks fit in her equipped bags at once, it would often take dozens of runs from the mailbox to the auctioneer before all her items were back up for purchase.

There was mounting frustration over what to do with these numbers as she was out of storage space, but large amounts of “buffer stacks” were needed to keep her from running out of any particular material. These buffers allowed her to farm when and where she wanted, rather than being subject to whatever had just sold, so were necessary with so many expansions’ worth of items. And so she continued on, not knowing what else to do with her large number of stacks.

By the time the Battle for Azeroth expansion released, Shadowsithe had earned her Bloodfang Widow and Celestial Calf, Peakzilla had spoiled her with another TCG mount - the Ghastly Charger - and a rare glance at her character wealth surprised her. In just 3-4 years, Shadowsithe had claimed some 35 million in gold! She rarely had much on her, though - reposting costs, buying smaller buyer’s wares, mounts, pets, and tokens to continue her gameplay usually meant the gold was gone soon after she received it, unless she was actively saving up like she had for the Mad Merchant’s expensive items.

Battle for Azeroth too brought with it a new, even more expensive mount, and one Shadowsithe had to get - the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur. A giant sauropod-like beast, this mount included something most AH Goblins wanted - a portable auctioneer. From it, a farmer could repost from anywhere, or buy items far from cities. With a staggering 3,000 actively posted stacks, Ghoststrike was eager to claim her own. It was a dinosaur, it was a mount, it had an auctioneer and prestige…. What more could a seller want?

Despite her desire for the Brutosaur, Shadowsithe did not immediately start saving for the mount. While she had enjoyed Legion, the constant farming and reposting had taken a heavy toll. The direct-buyer she had picked up in Legion grew disappointed when she could not produce stacks of herbs like she had the previous expansion, though he was understanding of her exhaustion. Reposting now took six dedicated hours….

It wasn’t until she learned of a particular pet, Francois, that Ghoststrike began saving up the small fortune. This quirky little chicken pet required one million gold, but unlike her Celestial Calf, she would not have to surrender her savings; players simply needed to have one million on them to interact with the chicken and receive it as a pet. With several hundred thousand already, she began the save. Once she reached one million again, and gathered up her new chicken, the decision was made that, being 1/5th of the way there, that it was time to begin saving for the Brutosaur. And Shadowsithe began selling hard.

Previously, she had sold very little in Trade chat. She disliked the generally negative reception: “Why are you selling so high?” for items that she was selling at an average pricing, “You know folks can just go get that,” for mounts that, easy enough to get, still took time or were located in areas many players did not like to venture to. Rather than try to work with her - suggesting a reasonable price for both parties or at least inquiring as to why the pricing was the way it was - the server generally made Shadowsithe wonder why she bothered. But she wanted that Brutosaur.

She sold mounts, toys, and pets in Trade in BFA. She didn’t spam much, and the items she was selling, she still also sold on the Auction House. Most were items that generally went for 5,000-30,000 gold. Commonly, she would sell Reins of Poseidus for 8,000-10,000; either directly trading in Orgrimmar or sending a buyer their mount via C.O.D. (cash on demand) mail. She was polite, but still received plenty of negative feedback, but between such Trade sales and her usual auction sales, she managed to save the remaining four million within four months.

The day she finally made her last required gold, however, real-life tragedy struck: Peakzilla’s grandfather passed away. Out of respect, Ghoststrike waited until the following day to make her purchase - 4/20/2019.

Shadowsithe decided to have fun with the RP3 addon (used for making profiles for characters and mounts for Role Playing), and created a profile for the Brutosaur. She named him Atlas, as he would be carrying the weight of all his owner’s auctions, and because of his purchase date described him as the reason why she never had much Anchor Weed on hand. Which may have also explained the redness of his dopey eyes….

Following her purchase of Atlas, Shadowsithe returned to her routine of posting her 3,000+ stacks, though she became more lax about them. With nothing to actively save up for at the time and worn from years of farming, for a while she didn’t do much else. However, after serving the realm for so many years, even if most players were unsupportive of her Trade sales, Ghoststrike felt obligated to keep going. If she stopped, suddenly 3,000+ stacks of materials would no longer be available to the two servers, and, whether she was right or wrong, she felt like she might still be one of the largest - if not the largest - sellers. Prior to her deletion years before, she had wanted to leave the dead realm. Now, she felt proud of all she had accomplished there. This was her first-ever character, on her first-ever server; she had been part of Blackwater Raiders starting in 2009, and her longevity there filled her with a sense of ownership. This was, in a way, her realm, and she felt she needed to take care of it to keep it from degrading any further. Over the years, many had left the server - or the game entirely. But she would stay. She would supply the server.

At the same time, frustrations were higher than ever. The long hours spent reposting endless materials wore on her. Her direct-buyer kept checking in to see if she had current expansion herbs - which she did not. Real-life issues had also accumulated, putting her into an increasingly foul mood. Ghoststrike was at her breaking point. This eventually led to a day where she suffered a meltdown after several attempts selling in Trade led to multiple rude responses. She wound up expelling her grievances onto a friend-turned-guildmate. Angry, she rage-quit the game for the day, and upon her return, the guildmate had left. To this day, he is still among her friends’ list, but neither have spoken to each other since. It was a low point, and Shadowsithe felt that to her bones.

Following this all-time low, she stopped trying to sell in Trade entirely, disheartened and sickened by the outright rudeness of her peers. No more Trade chat deals - if they wanted her wares, they would have to buy them - at cost - from the Auction House, or else catch her on a generous day when she gave out free Reins of Poseidus to new, nice, or helpful players.

During Legion, Ghoststrike had found a few other ways to preoccupy her when she was simply too worn to farm. She would venture to Draenor, seeking the rares that dropped mounts for whoever killed them. Having already collected their mounts, instead, she would seek them out for others, and once found, she would make a listing in Custom Groups and invite others to come and get theirs. She would watch trade for helpful players and mail them a mount or pet they were missing, trying to encourage more of such behaviors. New players were invited to join her alt-dump of a guild until they found a more suitable one, or else mailed “care packages” including various potions and gold. Like the Draenor mounts, she would seek rare pets for Hunters to tame in other zones, and if found, would also list Custom Groups.

In 2020, the Auction House was updated. The update meant all auctions would be removed during it, and Shadowsithe decided, begrudgingly, that it was now or never: she dispersed her 3,000+ auctions among her growing number of alts on the servers, each outfitted with their own personal bank. Switching between 10+ alts to repost a fraction of her former stocks was not ideal, but with many stacks now stored in the banks, Ghoststrike had more time to farm different materials, work through current questlines, and look for rares for other players.

Low population servers were merged, and the formerly merged Blackwater Raiders and Shadow Council were now also merged with Cenarion Circle and Sisters of Elune. Ghoststrike promptly created alts on both - including her first major Alliance character. Each of the four servers bears a Shadowsithe Rogue - meant to inform possible buyers on Auction House that they are buying from the same seller after the scattering of her stocks. Many alts also bear “sithe” in their names, though not all do.

It was also during 2020 that the Rogue opted to create her own Discord server. She had been directed to the Secrets Discord server (a server dedicated to helping players get rare mounts, pets, hunter pets...etc) while listing one of her custom groups, and for a while she helped folks there get mounts/pets. However, once again, the group aspect ruined it for her. Too many people asking to join her when she found something. Too many jerks if something changed about how a rare was tagged by multiple people and she didn’t know. Too many people trying to tell her how to run her own groups. So Shadowsithe stopped helping the Secrets Discord, and gladly returned to her Custom Listings.

She eventually made her own Discord server: Shadowsithe Ghoststrike’s In-game Event and Giveaway Server. She made it because in 2020, she wouldn’t be decorating or handing out candy for Halloween, her favorite holiday. Because she wasn’t handing out candy, and because players with children might be looking for some in-game fun instead, she created the server in order to host her first event. This event featured an easily-obtained pet, Nethaera’s Light, with the idea that maybe she might entertain small children stuck inside on Halloween during the pandemic with it. This would also include rides on Atlas around Northrend Dalaran, where the pet was located, and even a small “skit” - again, all with the idea to entertain children. For adults, there were also to be giveaways on both Horde and Alliance.

There were several hurdles in hosting such events. First and foremost, no one was in the Discord server. Which led right into the second hurdle: “advertising”. This meant again having to engage in General and Trade chats to inform players of the ongoing event. And of course, the first time Shadowsithe did, she was met with someone complaining about her hosting an event right after some famous person died. Nevermind that she had been planning and working on the event for two weeks and setting up her Discord channel and that Ghoststrike, who does not follow news about most celebrities, did not know that someone famous had died.

The “kids event” didn’t see many people, and the ones who did show up were adults. No one showed up for the Alliance “skit”, and only one showed up for Horde. The giveaways were better, though, and overall a success.

The Winter Veil events would be different. This included 8 days giving away one Coin of Many Faces to correspond with Hanukkah, Christmas Eve and Day Giveaways, and New Years Eve and Day giveaways. While still successful, advertising the giveaways - and the Discord server where folks unable to attend in-game or interested in future events could sign up - was met with rude comments and unfounded accusations. The saltiest of which ranted on and on about how Shadowsithe was probably doing it for money, or streams, or to get emails to steal information - absolutely unfounded and incorrect. Just for trying to give other players in-game items!

The Discord channel is still being worked upon: Ghoststrike is working to add sections for RP, which is lacking on her servers, Fanfiction, Cosplay/costumes, Artwork, relays, and channels for finding rares or hosting Garrisons. However, with few people - many of which are not on any of her servers - it is difficult for the host to want to work on them. None of the current members respond or show up to any of the in-game events. Between the lack of interest in the Discord itself and the disheartening reactions of players on the servers, Shadowsithe has not hosted a giveaway since February 14, 2021.

There were supposed to be giveaways for July 4, 2021 on both factions, titled the “Light it Up” event, but nervousness about announcing them in chats built all day until she simply decided not to host them, despite all the work put into an event playlist, event guide with links, the movement of the would-be prizes from one character to another, and the hours spent making speech macros perfect. It’s not like anyone else knows or cares that it didn’t happen. She did, however, still help folks from both factions get Nethaera’s Light for two hours each, so at least it wasn’t a total loss.

October 5, 2021, Ghoststrike achieved her 50 million. With her monumental achievement of reaching 50 million gold through auctions on one character, Ghoststrike is planning a new event to celebrate. She hopes by the time she has the guide and playlist ready, she may have calmed her nerves enough to announce it in chat. However, there are reservations to announcing this milestone to her peers. While Ghoststrike may be excited and eager to celebrate earning such a large amount of gold, others may view it as showing off, insult her again, or stop buying from her if they think she’s “made enough gold”.

Going forward, Shadowsithe plans on saving up even more huge amounts of gold. The farmer has her eyes set on some truly expensive mounts, some which are only available through the Black Market Auction House (BMAH) and some which are part of the Trading Card Game. Among her wishlist: the Spectral Tiger - TCG mount (and unarmored version of her Swift Spectral Tiger), Magic Rooster X 2 - TCG mount, Swift Zulian Tiger - BMAH only, Plagued Proto-Drake - BMAH only, and the Heavenly Onyx Cloud Serpent - low drop chance or BMAH.

The Trading Card Game mounts are becoming rarer by the year, and the real-life costs of them will almost certainly keep them unobtainable to Ghoststrike, as neither of these particular mounts have been seen on any of the merged servers for years. While she really wants her own Spectral Tiger to go along with Spectre, Ghoststrike is more optimistic about finding one of two Magic Roosters. This is the only TCG mount Peakzilla is interested in, and Shadowsithe would love to give him one since he has gifted her two beautiful, ghostly TCG mounts. The second one, for herself, is to match Peakzilla’s - couple goals! Some claims of purchasing these mounts for gold in-game from other players have reached up to 20 million for the tiger, though, so between never seeing the mounts and their expected amounts, they appear to be out of reach, even for Blackwater Raiders’ ghastly bulk merchant.

The BMAH-only mounts rarely show up, as the items for sale change randomly daily, and it is not uncommon for them to go for the current gold cap - 10 million gold. While they can be purchased for less sometimes, Ghoststrike fully expects a long save to 10 million - twice. Moreover, it is not unheard of for someone on one server with the gold cap to pay to transfer their character to another server to purchase such mounts. She will be lucky to obtain either for less than gold cap, and this likely not for at least a year, until she can save enough to contend for them.

The last, the Heavenly Onyx Cloud Serpent, is still able to be looted from the boss Sha of Anger, though it has a 1 in 2,000 drop chance with each character able to kill it once per week, and many who comment on WoWhead claim numbers much higher before obtaining. Ghoststrike herself has already put in around 1,400 attempts for this mount. Once, she nearly purchased the mount off BMAH for a little over one million gold. However, she was saving for four other mounts and a pet that combined would total 1.6 million, and being so close to purchasing them, she could not bring herself to buy the cloud serpent.

Shadowsithe Ghostsrike had no idea nearly seven years ago that returning to World of Warcraft would lead her here, to 50 million in sales. She had no idea of this long, strange journey. And now having reached this incredible milestone, she looks forward to seeing the next 50 million come in. She’s going to need it to continue her mount collection! And pay for her sub - token prices have reached costs of 200,000+ gold for 30 days of game time.

With the prices of the past few “gold sink” mounts - the Bloodfang Widow and Mighty Caravan Brutosaur - the question has arisen as to what the next big-ticket mount might be.

Asking our Rogue, she had this to say, “If it were up to me - and I’ve commented this on WoWhead under the comments for the Brutosaur - I’d love to see a coach. Like, maybe let players fly their guild banners, allow it to carry a full party of five, and maybe give an option for one mount per person? I think it would be so cool to have the mount number correspond to how many people are riding. Of course, I like matchy-matchy - if I hook Ghastly, my beloved Ghastly Charger, to it, and I have someone join my party and hop on this coach, I want a second Ghastly to help pull it. Maybe a Goblin invention or buff that changes each additional mount to mirror the lead? I think it would be epic for Role Playing. I mean, if the next “mount” is going to cost gold cap or 10 million gold, I want to see something really unique. Add the final touch of a banker in the coach, and this mat farmer will absolutely swoon. It’s a tall order, though - but I can dream.”

Anything can happen going forward. But Ghoststrike is fairly confident she’ll continue her adventures on Blackwater Raiders, going so far as to say she thinks she might even have the drive to stay and farm until the last days on the server - hopeful that is many years from now, despite plenty of other players proclaiming the death of World of Warcraft.

“Now,” Shadowsithe remarks, “I only wonder when I get an achievement for all these sales! Or a title - “Gold Baron(ness) of Server", “Merchant", “Gold-Hoarder”? Come on - what's a mat farmer gotta do?"