RE: WoW Auction Houses
 

Woah... is the economy totally broken? Has inflation hit so badly that gold is practically worthless in the Auction House(AH)? I was looking forward to buying some Herbs, but the average cost was ridiculous, and we're only talking about low-level Herbs here.

I also sold some stuff at my own price, which was substantially lower than the average market rate, but still very profitable.

Market forces indeed.

Cheers.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

Yep, most items gleaned from gathering skills are horribly expensive. The economy on most servers is terribly inflated, because of farmers and gougers.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

Dundee, I suggest you get a mod called Auctioneer to ensure you don't get ripped off at the AH. You can get it from www.curse.com.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

You know, back when I made my foray into WoW some few years back, me and my brother had this grand vision. Our vision was to create a "Merchant Guild" so to speak. Instead of a guild where you go out and do raids, it would be more of a guild that would ensure fair standards on trade goods. We tossed the idea back and forth and tried to work out a system but ultimately... we never got off our lazy butts and we never spread the word about our vision.

Still, I think it could be done with enough like-minded people. Granted I haven't played the game in ages now but I'd imagine one could easily accomplish the task with a relatively minimal number of guild members.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

The coming of Burning Crusade expansion has changed gold earning considerably. Before BC, people have to actually grind a lot to have a reasonable amount of gold. Many people have resort to buy gold from gold farmers as a short cut to having gold.

Now by leveling 60 ~ 70 in BC content alone and doing all the quests there will net you at least 2000 gold. With the introduction of daily quest, even casual players can earn at least 110 gold per day doing those daily quests. As a result, players become richer and richer and the value of gold become lesser and lesser. It's not a surprise to see items sold in AH have a "cutting throat" price nowadays.

Hmm...my hands are getting ichy...

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

I still haven't grasp all the mechanics of the game yet. Heck, I still don't know how to chat in the General Channel. :laugh2: So I won't be installing any 3rd-party mods until I am comfortable with the game first.
~~~~

Mind you, I am not undercutting here. I took the base value of my items (NOT THE SELL PRICE, just to be clear here), applied two multipliers to it and one additive formula for a final price. The difference between the starting price and the buyout price lies in the difference of one of the multiplier values.

What these three values are, I will be keeping it a secret to myself, but needless to say, I AM NOT by any means, selling cheap.

It is just that compared to the INSANITY of the usual Buyout values, my auctions seem dirt-cheap in comparison.

Most guides I read stated that I would only see my first gold piece when I hit Level-18+. True... if I were to solely stick to Questing, this will most probably be true, but I am raking in the money now, and my equipment is still LAUGHABLE. Herbalism and Alchemy has to be one of the most profitable profession-combination EVER, and I wasn't aware of it when I was designing the theme of my first character.

At this point, some of you might be asking me, why not just follow the crowd then? Why not just list higher prices?

NO. Just no. Call me stupid, call me dumb, call me whatever, but I have very strong principles on these kind of things, because I simply abhor overcharging for the sake of overcharging. Even at work, I prefer to point out better combinations to customers, even if it means less sales at the initial transaction, but I am building trust here, for FUTURE sales.

Even if I'm amongst the few, I will continue to stick to my pricing scheme formula. On the plus side, because my prices are so much more reasonable (as opposed to obscene), my items sell rapidly, VERY rapidly. :D I can actually afford to fly frequent miles now. :D

As an example, these are my final prices for a x5 stack of Minor Healing Potions. Top is Starting Bid, bottom is Buyout Price.

01s 58c
02s 58c

Cheers.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

Yes, don't mod until you are ready. I am the same in a way, I won't overcharge for certain things. But then, certain other items I will. Bear in mind that whatever you do, no-one will do you any favors either way, they're a greedy lot them farmer types.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

<font color="cyan">There is no such thing as overcharging in WoW.

People will only pay what they want to pay for it. So if you can get it, sell it.

And, the reason low level herbs are expensive, is it takes TIME for people to farm them...they have to go back to Azeroth, on an epic land mount, and farm. So people just buy them. :D

</font>

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

Which server are you on again? I find that there are some massive differences between servers - my Horde toons on Dalaran end up having to spend way more than my Ally toons on Sen'Jin, and the Dalaran AH selection is pathetic.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

But still... when you price something that is about 2000% of its cost price... It does invoke a lot of face-palming action on my part.

I guess Gold is too plentiful in the WoW's economy. People don't seem to take its value seriously. The game may need more money sinks to curb the inflation. Maybe recipes that require money to make?

As my profile states, I'm on Lightninghoof. My intention with this character was to roleplay, and so I chose a RP-PVP realm.

...

Doesn't seem to have much RP though. No matter, I'm still having fun with the quests, and I do take delight in the harvesting.

Cheers.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

The latest (ish) money sink was the 5000g epic flying mount skill. Pre-Burning Crusade the thought of 1000g was a lot, now just having the game back not even a week I've acquired ~1200g just from levelling.

Did buy a recipe for Haste Potion, worth 500-700g says auctioneer, for 5g. Think I might keep it though...hmm.


I'm on Earthen Ring EU, and there actually isn't that much RP going on (it's an RP server, before RP/PVP was available). You get a lot less people saying things like "lol" and smiley faces in /say channels, but to find RP you really need a guild or a large friend list of RPers. Horde is stereotypically "better at roleplaying", but due to the huge ratio difference (or at least there was) it's much harder to find than alliance, where you can see roleplay, good bad and ugly, just walking around Stormwind.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

The Sunwell dailies have made prices skyrocket. Low level materials are selling for outrageous amounts because these are alts being levelled by people funding them with level 70 toons who can earn over 100g in an hour of farming repeatable daily quests on Sunwell.

I blew a bunch of money on flasks for raiding and other goods and sundries, so now that I'm below 5k gold on my main toon I'll start farming the daily quests again.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

<font color="cyan">I sit at 4k on my main, with another 500g or so scattered across my 9 alts.

Flasks and stuff cost money, especially as my shammy isnt high enough to get my herbs yet.

But I've got everything in game I need, such as epic flying etc, normal flying on my 70 alt.

So its just a case of earning money to raid!</font>

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

I'm depending heavily on players with "disposable" income to spare to buy my potions. The thing about potions is that it is a consumable, and can never be retrieved once used. So the demand for high-end potions is always there, because the usage is always there.

Stuff like Swiftness Potions sell for obscene prices and has caused the value of Briarthorn and Swiftthistle to skyrocket into the Great Beyond. Blackmouth Oil is also pricey due to it being an ingredient in the recipe for the Free Action Potions.

I have even started to "play" the market and utilise the concept of buying low and selling high. With new players logging in regularly, it is not unusual to suddenly see herbs being sold cheap. I can then buyout these herbs and laugh all the way to the bank when I resell them for profit, either directly, or indirectly through alchemy.

I'm not sitting on hundreds of gold yet because of my "ethical" pricing, but the reality is, if I wanted to, and I seriously put my mind to farming a few selected herbs and fishes. I can easily earn at least a thousand gold within 24 hours.

Cheers.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

In other words, you have discovered WoW's noble economy :D

Be careful with excessive buying out and reselling, this can actually get you a suspension as it falls under the compromising realm economy. I am not talking about a few buyouts though, for example people sometimes buyout the whole market of Copper Ore, then the resell it all at an obscene price, all the while buying out any new ones that do not meet their price criteria. For that, Blizz can intervene. Especially if you are gouging those prices as they get complaints from other players. It happens alot more now due to epic mount money also.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

Q : Does auctioneer tells you what items are currently being sold in AH?

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

Bottomscanner does, and that is usually packaged with Auctioneer as it can be intergrated into it. It is a "live" scanner and auctions will pop up as they're made.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

<font color="cyan">I would like to see where the rules state this.

AFAIK, you can do what you like with the AH.

I know people on 50k+gold, they just trade the AH all day long.</font>

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

It's there, happend to me once. I got hit with a 6 hr suspension on my AH alt about a year ago for this reason. Trust me I was as shocked as anyone that the AH wasn't my tool of ultimate cash anymore. They have new economy rules since I think 1 + year ago.

These people you know may not be breaking the rules, you can still buyout and resell on the AH or be pretty much ruthless and not break any economy rules, but when it becomes an issue for other people you'll get reported. Don't we all have farmers who will buy out all the low lvl herbs or armor and resell it at a god-forsaken price? That is AH monopolisation which falls under exploiting the economy now. Along with gold selling, buying. I will find the official page for you when I get a chance.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

Well I dug out the email they sent me, ( kept it as a grim momento) and noticed that they section 5 part C in the TOS. It's quite vague but like I said this is what they do now.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

<font color="cyan">Well, didn't know there was such a rule.

I never farm, all my money comes from my AH alt.

He's probably netted me at least 100k just by playing the AH in the past. I mainly deal in high end stuff though, such as recipes and epics, and probably take 300-500g profit each item.

I can't be bothered monopolising cloth etc for 1g profit a stack. Sometimes I delve into herbs though ;)

So I guess I don't piss off the majority of gamers.</font>

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

This particular incident was primals IIRC. I farmed tons of them, but also bought out the competition. Even though people do that, if you do it alot you get in trouble. This was one week of farming for my alts' epic flying mount when it happend. It wasn't like months of it. So I was as shocked as the next person. Also, another odd rule is there is actually a max amount of auctions you can put up and if you exceed it you get a warning/suspension too. It seems as odd as the previous rule, because if they're your auctions you should be able to put as many up as you want. The flagging number is like 100ish though when the GM's take notice. I usually go with about 20-30 auctions max at one time, but if I put all of my alts items up at once that could get me a GM convo. or whatever. I am guessing they suspect gold farming or something, and don't consider that some people have numerous bank alts and may save all their items for months and months.

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

<font color="cyan">Well when dealing with high end epics/patterns, I only have say 2-3 at a time. If that.

But those 3 net me say 1k or something, so im happy :D</font>

Re: WoW Auction Houses
 

Well, I highly doubt I will run afoul of those "crimes", since I most certainly do not have the time nor insanity to stop questing and farm only. The quests are the primary reason why I am playing this game in the first place, and the AH is just one aspect that I am enjoying.

When I do decide to farm for items (usually Blackmouth, Stranglekelp, Deviate Fish and Brairthorn at the moment), it is usually only for an hour max.

A bit surprised at the maximum number of auctions though. Not a problem for me at the moment since my items are moving fast.

Cheers.