You might have heard/read about it yesterday on several sites (such as Nihilum or SK-Gaming), a german player "Tyram" reached the Gold limit which is 214.748 gold, 36 silver and 46 copper. In this screenshot, a gamemaster admitted that him and the EU gm team are amazed that a single player managed to reach it, he also confirmed the gold cap.
Lifeblood of Spinebreaker server posted (WoW Forums) that the gold cap made perfect sense. Since the maximum limit is 2 to the power of 31, it is a signed int32 - a type of coding used by most developers. All in all, the total amount is plus or minus 2,147,483,647 copper.
Now, lets come to the point of that news, Unowiel from WoWszene.de interviewed that particular player "Tyram", however the original interview is in german, so we translated it (thanks Zetti & Ellyn) for curious players.
Unowiel: Please introcude yourself to the community! Whats your name, how old are you and where are you from?
Tyram: My name is Christian, I am 28 years old and im from Hamburg.
Unowiel: Since when do you play WoW and how many hours do you approximately play each week?
Tyram: I am playing WoW since february 2005 and I play around 35-40 hours during the week.
Unowiel: Alright, so you are quite a real hardcore gamer since the beginning. What is your current Job?
Tyram: Yes, you can pretty much say that. I am currently working in public service.
Unowiel: Great, so you are a real banker or something. *g* Now lets get to your WoW-Being. You got a lot of attention today and eventually gained a lot of fame as well when you started a thread in the official Blizzard forum, asking why you could not gather any more gold. It turned out that you reached the gold cap. What kept you motivated to keep collecting gold?
Tyram: Well, it all started when i was saving up for my first lvl 40 Mount. Back in the day i started trading, because it was simply the fastest way to get gold. I used to farm "The Green Hills of Stranglethorn" in Stranglethorn which were needed for a quest (there were 15 different ones) and then i sold them for 50 silver up to 1 gold. That was a lot of gold back then.
After that i got to know the auction house and bought cheap stuff and sold it for a bit more. Also the trading channel was in my field of view and I kept checking for cheap offers. That way I gathered a lot of gold quite quickly. I studied the patchnotes carefully so I knew what was needed when the patch was about to be released and then I sold the needed items for more than they were normally worth.
This is how I gathered 27.000 gold before the release of The Burning Crusade.
Unowiel: Interesting! And how did you do that? In your post in the official forum you mentioned that you earned a lot with jewelcrafting. Are there any other tricks for beginners? (during The Burning Crusade?)
Tyram: I made even more money once TBC was released. Herbalism and jewelcrafting made it possible to gain 2000-4000 gold each day, because everybody was in need of jewels for their new items. With the gold i saved i was able to buy the expensive recipes right away and therefore i was the leading jewelcrafter for a long period of time.
But i made the most money with the start of the arena season. Everybody was in need of blue gems and enchanting materials which i owned in huge quantities. I sold them for 40 gold per large prismatic shard and the gems for up to 90 gold. I was also trading with the Horde because Sen'Jin is a PvE Realm. I toke advantage of the price difference between the Horde and Alliance.
And thats how i collected the amount of gold i have now.
Unowiel: Amazing! What do you think about the economic system in World of Warcraft? Are there any weaknesses that come to your mind right now?
Tyram: Well, someday you will reach a point where you cant get anything new or useful for your gold. Once you have the best riding skill you wont need to spend a huge amount of gold anymore. The economic system of WoW is alright but the daily quests could lead to inflation because everybody will have a lot of money. If repair costs will make up for that is questionable. WoW is lacking possibilities to spend your money on once you have a lot of gold. Im thinking of the Spectral Tiger (at the moment TCG only) - the mount could be sold for 50.000 gold just like the flying mount of the Cenarion Expedition for 2.000 gold.
Unowiel: Or maybe spend your money for the not yet implemented Player housing? That would be a great addition for a collector like you, right?
Tyram: Yeah, that would be a good possibility, but Blizzard shortly announced that they are not currently planning on implementing that feature.
Unowiel: That's right. But maybe they'll add that if we keep begging for it.
Tyram: I hope so. ; )
Unowiel: Let's get back to the game. You are successfully raiding Black Temple. Which content do you prefer? PvE or PvP? And how long did it take you to get to Illidan?
Tyram: I prefer PvE. Im also enjoying PvP but my focus is set to PvE. We killed Illidan approximately 3 months ago and my guild is waiting for the 2.4 patch and the new instance, because we are quite bored of the content.
At this point I'd like to greet my guild eVolution!
Unowiel: You only got famous today. How does it feel to suddenly be that famous? Did you receive a lot of messages?
Tyram: Well, 'famous' is a little exaggerated. Shame i forgot to cut out my character's name when i posted the screenshot.
http://www.dragonlegion.org/images/custom/happy.gif I received 300-500 whispers that evening. A lot of funny whispers and also beggers. One of the guys said hes going to get a tattoo if i pay for his flying mount and the riding skill. Also a couple english speaking players whispered me and asked for tricks. Blizzard also messaged me and suspended my account - luckily it was unlocked after 2 hours (after checking the account).
Unowiel: Oh, why did they do that?
Tyram: Well, im guessing that they thought i was going to sell the gold for Euros. Which of course isn't the case!
Unowiel: Alright! Thanks for your time, I wish you a nice evening and all the best for the future!
Tyram: Thanks and keep up the good work with your fansite.
