As part of the new Alliance group, we decided a new server was a good idea, so everyone was starting from more or less scratch - 6 slot bags, no money, and if we were lucky, a tough hunk of bread. It would equalise the playing field a bit for our new recruit too. With the group up and running as of last night, it was time to setup the Guild.

After collecting all the signatures, we formed the Guild to much celebration. I went to create the Guild Tabard but it cost 10 gold to create. 10 gold! I only had 22 silver, so the crest would have to wait for some auction house ore sales to start rolling in - or so I thought.

One of our members came online, signed up, and suddenly advised everyone that the Guild Bank now had… 100,000 gold in it. One. Hundred. Thousand. Along with piles of 30 slot bags, etc. I was stunned, and didn’t quite understand how that was possible on a new server with new characters.

Then one of the other guildies clued me up: the WoW Token. They’re currently selling for ~190,000 gold, so there’s the answer to our guild riches. I’d never really considered the implications of the Token until that moment. I knew about them, but mostly thought they were used by auction goblins to buy free game time. But of course the free game time transfers gold to the seller.

It’s quite a game changer. I was quite pleased with how my Horde main had found her way to ~250,000 gold over the course of her career in game. But that is kind of rendered inconsequential when you can buy yourself that much in an instant. I felt a bit grumpy about it, as it seems a bit like cheating, but was reminded by a guildie that ‘we play for fun not purity’. Those that enjoy endless free bag space and rolling in cash can partake of the new found riches, and those that like the slower grind of gathering and auctioning and a hefty Coldridge Mountaineer’s Pouch can follow that path. And bag rage isn’t exactly ‘fun’.

So I withdrew 10 gold and made the tabard. But as for my personal accounts: as of tonight I have 25 silver, and feeling pretty chuffed with that. Time to mine some more ore!