Some of you might find this hard to believe, but I’m not what you’d consider a “rock star” in the WoW Blogging community.  I hope you were seated when you read that.  If you’re feeling faint, I understand.  Take a moment to regain your composure.  I’ll wait.

So… how much time do you think you’ll need?

I’m not sorting through mountains of fan mail or anything like that.  In fact, if it wasn’t for my spam folder I’d have no idea if my email account worked at all.   After giving it some thought, I decided that if I didn’t have any mail of my own to answer, I’d answer other people’s emails.

Like me, I’m sure that most of you listen to podcasts.  Probably World of Warcraft podcasts, given the blog you’re reading.  Most of them have a section for listener’s emails, where listeners will ask questions of the host and get some kind of answer from them.  And I’m sure that many of you have had your own answers for some of these emails, that differed from what the host had said.  Well this is MY blog, and on my blog I will answer questions that you people have asked… well, other people.

According to Wikipedia:

 A peanut gallery was, in the days of vaudeville, a nickname for the cheapest (and ostensibly rowdiest) seats in the theater, the occupants of which were all too willing [in the view of the performer] to heckle the performer. The least expensive snack served at the theater would often be peanuts, which the patrons would sometimes throw at the performers on stage to show their disapproval. The phrases “no comments from the peanut gallery” or “quiet in the peanut gallery” are extensions of the name, meaning the great unwashed should defer to their betters.

Meaning that while the people asking the questions weren’t asking ME, I’m still more than willing to talk out of my ass to answer their questions.

Take, for example, questions related to gold-making.  I’ve made tens of thousands of gold on a number of servers, and while I’m not a millionaire I have earned enough to be able to purchase whatever I may need to become a more effective player.  I’ve even held raffles to give gold away on servers.  I’m zany like that.

I was listening to the Clockwork Riot podcast and a listener asked:

“I saw you have a rooster egg.  I recently bought a second spectral tiger, the non-epic one.  What’s something fun to save for, expensive and rare stuff that is, that you can show off to people?”

The host of the blog / podcast / vidcast, Faid, is a multi-millionaire and as close to a pro-gold maker as you can get.  She gave her fairly extensive answer to the question HERE (her answer comes at 01:18 into the video.)  I suggest you see what a true gold-maker would have as an answer to this question.

Now when I first heard this question, I couldn’t hear Faid’s answer over the sound of my own inner monologue.  That voice would not shut up, or even keep his tone down to a dull roar.  Nope, that voice kept asking “Why do people find it so important to show off to others?”

Some people just like the attention.

I don’t like showoffs.  Not in-game, not in real life.  It smacks of insecurity. I don’t give a spider monkey’s ass what someone else has or how they got it.  It doesn’t impress me, so kindly take your show on the road. The fact you bought something or got together with a group of people to kill a boss really doesn’t strike me as something to brag about.

But back to the question.  If you have that kind of money, and you didn’t need to buy things for Achievements or other forms of self-improvement, you could be donating to your guild.  Let them unlock repairs, buy more bank tabs, or just use the cash to buy materials for flasks and so on.  That way the gold benefits everyone in the guild, rather than just a single person’s ego.

If your guild has everything they need, buy some of those expensive and rare things from the Auction House and give them away.  Make a contest, whatever.  I guarantee that your fellow players will appreciate the gesture much more than you might enjoy a new shiny that you probably don’t even care about all that much.  Gold makers make their money, bottom line, because other players buy whatever it is they’re selling.  If you don’t need the money, if the money is just a status thing, then who is hurt by giving some of it back to the players you got it from in the first place?

Is doing any of this “fun”?  Fun is subjective. Some people jump out of airplanes and call it “fun”.  Some people drink themselves into a fall-down stupor, vomit all over themselves while simultaneously shitting their pants, and call it “fun”.

Me?  Spending gold I don’t even need, giving to others that do…. I don’t know if that’s “fun”, but it makes me smile.