A friend asked me to check out a gold earning system at gold-secrets. My first thought was, "Oh, man! Not another WOW guide..."

Let me tell you, I couldn't be more pleased that I decided to take a look at it anyway.

For those of you who don't know, in World of Warcraft gold is so much more meaningful than it ever was in yesterday's RPG's.

From that low level character struggling to put together decent basic kit to the seasoned veteran trying to get that Epic Flying Mount, everybody who plays World of Warcraft needs gold.

In the RPG's of old, your only choice if you needed gold was to find a recurring encounter that was easily winnable and farm it over and over. Even in World of Warcraft there's some of this, but with the incredible size of the world, it's more important than any other game to know exactly where to find these 'easy' encounters. Also, with the added danger of PVP play you need to constantly look over your shoulder in case there's a 27th level Rogue just waiting to spring out of the woodwork and eat your 10th level Hunter for lunch so having a 'secret' spot to farm is super important.

One of the greatest thing about the gold-secrets guide is that it gives you strategies to make the most of the auction house. This is one of the things that sets World of Warcraft apart in terms of realism. In old RPG's, you collected stuff and took it to programmed merchants. Your options were pretty much accept their prices or get nothing. The auction house enables you to make a profit from other players who are looking for a specific item you happen to have. The flip side of this coin is that knowing all the techniques in the gold-secrets guide lets you have extra gold to buy that extra-rare item that has your mouth watering. If you just need a certain rare item to give you the perfect kit, having all the extra gold lets you make other players offers they just can't refuse for the item.