Fishing is a curious skill. It can be relaxing (when you enjoy its peacefulness), exciting (when you suddenly get The 2 Ring!), stressful (when you compete in the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza), and sometimes boring (when you just fish to level up).

But it can also be profitable! As you can learn from my just finished Gold-Making with Fishing gold guide, fishing can earn you some good money, regardless of level and class. If you have never tried fishing before, then maybe now is a good time for getting a fishing pole and trying it out - and earning some gold in the process.

Happy angling!

The Gold Polls were launched last week, and already quite a few votes have tickled in, yielding some interesting opinions and facts. Here is a brief list of examples:

• Netherstorm is the most popular zone in Outland for gold-making, with Nagrand and Shadowmoon Valley sharing the second place.
  
• The Hunter class is voted the best class for gold-making.
• Voodex users are quite rich, it seems. 57% have voted that they have more than 1.000 gold. 11% voted that they have more than 10.000 gold (!).
• Voodex users are also quite high-level. 66% have at least one level 70 avatar.
• The most popular way of gold-making is by using a gathering profession, e.g. Mining, Herbalism, Skinning, and Fishing.
• Mining is voted the best profession for gold-making.
• Skinning and Mining is voted the best profession-combo for gold-making.
• The greatest gold drain is getting the mount. It is what most people save up for, and what they have recently spent the most gold on.

If you haven't voted yet, vote now!

I just added a new type of gold guide: The Gold Poll! What the heck is that, you ask? Simply put, gold polls are user polls on various gold topics. Why is that useful? Well, gold polls are the distilled wisdom (or humor) of the masses on everything gold. Sometimes, the opinion of the many might give you an answer to what you seek - or just be plain fun.

I have added a few gold polls to get things started. Feel free to add new ones. But please: Keep 'em relevant and useful. Or relevant and fun.

As with any other type of gold guide, you can also subscribe to gold polls as a feed.

The time has come for Voodex to leave the beta phase.

The past three months - since the launch of Voodex on December 1st 2007 - have been wonderfully hectic. Here is a brief list of some of the most important things that has happened:

• A total of 41 gold guides has been added, for a grand total of 80 gold guides. Collectively, these guides cover many different aspects of gold-making in World of Warcraft, and I feel confident that they make Voodex the best gold-making resource out there. We now have several 100+ gold/hour strategies, and even one that promises 200+ gold/hour! (I'd love to see some gold reports on this.)
  
• A completely new site design, hopefully for the better.
  
• 100% code rewrite (port from Java to PHP). Boring, but important.
• RSS feeds, and new and updated icons, for better tracking of new and changed guides.
• A Voodex blog. (You are staring at it.)
  
• A new forum. First added, then removed, then added again. A bumby ride. But now it is here to stay!
• Maps of all zones, including mining maps, herbalism maps, and treasure maps.
  
• And a zillion of those small things that just make Voodex a little better.
  

But most important is the fact that people are writing happily about Voodex. And that Voodex now welcomes about 800 users each day (which is up 100% from just one month ago!). I can only interpret this one way: Voodex is useful.

Originally, I decided to create Voodex because of my disappoint with all the costly gold guides out there. In addition to their rather hefty cost, most of them fall way too short on their promises. In my opinion, they are one inch from being fraud, and I wouldn't mind see them all banished by a free, open, clean and community-powered Voodex.

And that is where you come in! Don't keep Voodex for yourself. Tell your friends about it. Enjoy the guides - and they riches they bring - together. Don't be shy on sharing a bit of your own gold-making wisdom either. It is much appreciated! Remember: The World of Azeroth is large, varied and rich enough for all of us to get loaded. Especially if we cooperate. And that is exactly what Voodex is about: Cooperating, sharing and having fun with this wonderful and unique game of endless Warcraft.

Voodex is certainly blessed with creative and knowledgable users!

Quinzeta has just added a gold strategy entitled The Turbo-Charged Clefthide Leg Armor Factory. This baby can earn you a whopping 200 gold/hour (or more!). If you meet the requirements, that is. It is strategies like this that keep Voodex in the leading end of top-notch gold-making sites. Check it out, and learn from the best.

A while back, Nighson added three gold strategies and was the first at Voodex to beat the 100 gold/hour limit. The one most recently submitted (entitled Farming Primal Air In Nagrand) is probably one of the most interesting and creative gold-making strategies, I have ever seen. It you can earn you 140 gold/hour, and even more if you have an epic mount!

Thanks to you both, guys. Its guys like you that make it worthwhile to run a site like Voodex.

[Edit: Ch1cken Sniper just added a low-level strategy with amazing potential for low-level dwarves and gnomes in Dun Morogh with Skinning and Leatherworking. At level 10+, you can earn 15+ gold/hour with this strategy. We could use more good low-level strategies like this. Thanks, m8.]

As you may have noticed, the tagline for Voodex has changed from "The World of Warcraft Gold Database" to "Gold-Making in World of Warcraft". I like the newer one better because it more accurately describes what Voodex is all about. In addition, the "Gold Database" wording was semantically a bit weird. How can you have gold in a database? (Don't think about this for too long, or you'll realize that this is actually exactly where Blizzard stores your gold!)

By the way, I have just finished off the second article in the ongoing Profession Gold-Making Series: Gold-Making With Enchanting. (This first one was Gold-Making With Mining.) I hope these will prove useful to you whether you have already chosen one of these professions, or are considering it.

On a final note, I'll discretely mention that Voodex now has its first affiliate partner: J!NX. Their WoW-clothing is so geeky that I simply had to spread the word. For my baby son, I think I'll buy the Whelpling T-Shirt. Damn cute. For myself, the Quest Giver Hat is certainly a candidate.

As part of writing the Gold-Making With Mining article, I realized that it would be useful if all zone (i.e. location) pages here on Voodex had a screenshot of the map of the zone. Both a plain map, and gatherer map showing mining and herb nodes, treasure chests, etc. So, the location (and profession and class) pages now have a screenshots section. (And a comments section, added for good measure.) Over the next few days, I'll upload the maps.

I have also extended the menu bar with Classes, Locations, and Professions links so it becomes (much!) easier to find articles associated with these.

Farming motes and primals is one of the best ways to make gold - or save gold if you want to level up your professions. For this reason, knowing where to farm and the mob to grind on for motes is an important part of gold-making.

And now Voodex's got an article to help you with that: Farming Motes And Primals In Outland. I hope you'll find it useful.

Happy farming!

I intend to do a series of articles on profession gold-making. However, I don't have gold-making experience with them all. So I need your help and advice!

If you want to help out, head over to the recently launched forums and share your knowledge, so it can be immortalized in proper articles for the benefit of all. I have posted threads in the Article Forum.

I have been playing in Netherstorm and Shadow Moon Valley for the last few weeks, completing the quests in these two end-game zones. I hit level 70 some time ago, so instead of gaining experience points from completed quests, I earn extra gold. And that's a lot of gold. Add to that the quest item rewards and loot from mobs. And the occasional mining. In total, I am earning about 80 gold/hour just from regular gaming!

I have already passed the "3.000 gold mark" by now, so I am well on my way to my epic flier.

I know that many people are complaining about the cost of the epic flier, and to this my advice is: Complete the end-game quests! (Of course, if you want to get there faster, you should try one of the many gold strategies available.)