Blizzard tells me I'm in virtual poverty

I'm on the phone, waiting for Blizzard to let me back in (to see if I can't bag the Gnomeregan Drape before Cat) after having lost my iPod touch this summer. Thanks, authenticator! The on-hold warnings make things sound dire. If you don't have your authenticator serial num or [something I didn't hear about another serial number], they might ask for a picture id. Blizzard is Blizzare. Thanks Blizzard qua police.

Looks like I might be on a while and will hear what I might need lots of times. Here's the list.
* serial from the back of your [stand-alone] authenticator or
* serial code to your mobile authenticator
* blizzard key from your classic World of Warcraft

Digging up the last of which scored me a 60 day game card I forgot I'd grabbed. Score! Hope they don't expire.

In any event, I stumbled over this snippet about character transfers while waiting.

- Characters carrying too much gold are not eligible for transfer, as follows:
- Level 10-30: 300 gold limit
- Level 31-50: 1000 gold limit
- Level 51-69: 5000 gold limit
- Level 70 - 80: 20000 gold limit

Makes sense, of course. You don't want to enable gold farmers any more than you have to. And $25 to move 20000 gold is a little steep.

But on the other hand, the alternate, implied message is that you need about 20,000 gold to support a good 70-80. I'm not taking this as the most a character should have, as it's easy to dump your holdings before moving to a new server. Hello Mr. Alt; it's your lucky day! Instead, what they're saying is that they understand that a level 80 character could need at least 20,000 just to get around. This is sorta like when folks were smuggling fuel out of Iraq in giant tanks ostensibly for the tractor-trailers' tractors. "Oh, um, this gold is just for my favorite character, XygGHETdss!"

How much gold does Jal have? Sheesh. I don't know. I haven't played since January, and I don't see anything in my fairly recent posts. I do know I haven't looked much north of 1000g since I paid to dual spec -- which I've paid but haven't actually spec'd out, and which I see now costs 100g. THANKS, Blizzard! Nor did I have enough for artisan flying or what have you. I tend to live pretty hand-to-mouth and haven't found a good, dependable, and fun means of making money. Leatherworking takes forever to farm up the mats and grab the pattern of the week. I guess I'm just not a patient farmer, though I put in a fair bit of time farming motes of air in BC... Usually I just hack up something for myself and keep running. Pots, repairs, and the occasional gear splurge (Graylo had plenty of goldsinks) seem to keep me close enough to zero most of the time.

But the bottom line is that Blizzard suggests a good 80 will have 20,000 gold, and Jal's lucky to have over 1000. As Keith sings, sad sad sad.