WoW gold - Buy or make it yourself?

World of Warcraft (WoW for short), is a game in which you absolutely need gold (game currency) to play. If you want to fly to another city, buy armor, buy weapons or just food to get your health back up you absolutely have to have some gold in your inventory. Some people get enough of it from just killing monsters and doing quests, but when you reach a certain level, you will soon be in desperate need of more.
There are several ways of getting gold. You can farm, do quests, play the auction house and buy gold online, but which method is the best?

First of all let me just remind you that buying gold online is against the game policy and if you get busted doing it, you can and most likely will be banned from the game permanently. However, it is the fastest way of obtaining huge amounts of gold with no effort what so ever. Buying gold online can be a smart move for some people who don't have the time to obtain it themselves. Of course, if you get banned, you can only blame yourself for breaking the rules.

Farming refers to repeatedly killing monsters just for the rewards. At higher levels, monsters can drop quite valuable items which can be sold to either vendors or on the auction house. Unfortunately farming requires a great amount of time and effort. If you have alot of time and love playing the game even though it means you have to do the same thing over and over again this is a good way to get the last gold you need to get your flying mount.

Playing the auction house means that you invest alot of gold in buying items at high demand and selling them for more money. This can be a fast way of earning gold, but it is essentially gambling. If you know what you are doing, you will probably end up making alot, but it does include a great risk. If you buy an item and no one buys it from you later, you may just have lost a whole lot of gold.
I have tried this my self, and even though I made some cash, it took me too long for it to actually be profitable. However I do know of several people who have made huge amounts of gold from using this method, so don't let my experiences scare you.

Questing is another safe way of earning. Like farming it can take some time, but it can be very profitable. Questing is often like farming; "Kill x amount of this monster and get 20g". This means that questing is actually a mix between farming and doing quests. Normally you will earn less from questing than farming, but you will probably keep it up longer, because it means that you don't have to do the same thing over and over.

My favourite is questing. It varies the gameplay just enough so that you can go on for hours without getting tired. I haven't tried buying gold online, and I probably won't but if you are willing to take the risk and also taking away the satisfaction of achieving something yourself, I say go for it. It's still a game, not your life - I hope...