The biggest bargain in the AH
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Aug 14th 2007 at 1:30PM
Now that the 48-hour downtime has begun for "selected realms", which unfortunately includes my home turf of Magtheridon, I feel I can release this delicious orange of wisdom for future downtimes.
Blizzard GMs have confirmed that auctions do indeed continue during downtime. Specifically, this means that if you find an auction with an extremely low bid using Auctioneer and bid on it right before the server goes down, you can pick up that item insanely cheap.
Hopefully, this method has netted me two stacks of Arcane Dust for the low, low price of 1 silver 10 copper. Since other realms may be suffering the same 48-hour downtime, this plan may help ease the pain of two days without WoW by knowing you're at least making some gold!
Edited to fix link.
Filed under: Making money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Zebedeo Aug 14th 2007 1:36PM
So nice to know you are exploiting the system to rip off an enchanter.
Mike Aug 14th 2007 1:36PM
Next time, let me know about this _before_ the downtime. :)
John Aug 14th 2007 1:41PM
Too bad they can't move the auctions to HTML also....how cool would that be, wBay, to buy and sell when you can't play WoW but you can be on the Internet!!
FireStar Aug 14th 2007 1:42PM
awesome.
@2. if the enchanter is stupid enough to put a bid on it that isn't equal to or slightly less than buyout, then he's ripping himself off.
Wulfhere Aug 14th 2007 1:42PM
Yes, because she forced that enchanter AT GUNPOINT to put the dust up on the AH.
What crawled up everyone's ass and died this week? There have been bitchy troll posts on every thread!
moderndayhermit Aug 14th 2007 1:44PM
I don't find that to be exploitation. If a person places their item on Reserve at such a low price, that is the risk they take.
FireStar Aug 14th 2007 1:43PM
@3, that idea rocks!
BrianD Aug 14th 2007 1:47PM
Good tip, and also why I never:
1. Put items in the AH on Monday (or the day before any other scheduled downtime); or
2. Choose a bid price for an item that isn't a reasonable value for the item.
As far as ripping of enchanters: if the bid is low, it was their choice to set it there.
Nails Aug 14th 2007 1:45PM
i once picked up Ced's Carver for a 20g bid using this method
sold it for 145g within a couple days :)
Bootsanator Aug 14th 2007 1:45PM
oh snap!
Marcus Aug 14th 2007 1:46PM
Basilisk Hide Pants for the low low price of 3g :)
Kompost Aug 14th 2007 1:48PM
I'm really pretty sure that the link for "auctions do indeed continue during downtime." isn't correct. Or am I just reading the wrong area?
Doffencrag Aug 14th 2007 1:57PM
@3: I don't think it'll work since it's the server that's down (that which holds all the valuable auction data, among other things).
If they had the AH available on HTML, during downtimes, we'd see... squat.
Derek Aug 14th 2007 2:04PM
Yeah save gold or lose gold....
First lesson in economics: For every winner of a transaction, there is also a loser.
Grimmnar3 Aug 14th 2007 2:07PM
Another way to get these great bargins is to check the auction house as the servers come back online.
Many times you can snatch up a lower priced bid/buyout item.
This is one of the ways we show you how to make gold within WOW. You can make over 1000g a day using this method and others described within the Easy Gold Guide.
http://www.easygoldguide.com
Zebedeo Aug 14th 2007 2:06PM
"Now that the 48-hour downtime has begun for "selected realms", which unfortunately includes my home turf of Magtheridon, I feel I can release this delicious orange of wisdom for future downtimes."
So he is basically admitting that he found a way to exploit the system and to avoid everyone rushing to do it he waited in good conscience before posting this article. However that did not stop him from ripping someone off who didn't know.
Of course he is not breaking any rules, that doesn't mean its moral. He still exploited the situation to his benefit. Of course I am not completely sure he is being honest when he says someone posted arcane dust for such a low amount. That might just be fluff for his article.
Ichigo Aug 14th 2007 2:19PM
I picked up Pattern: Cloak of Eternity last night for the low price of 35g.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24300
My auctioneer said it was worth 130g and wowhead has it listed for 250g. Nice pattern and I think i'll make a few and put them on the AH tonite.
Dave Aug 14th 2007 2:18PM
for whatever it's worth, this has always been the standard procedure for anyone who's staying up until maintenance every day. Bid on anything at all you can find that's of a medium or less duration and hope the maint period goes the distance OR that nobody's logging on really fast to outbid you when the server bounces back up.
And depending on how late you want to stay up, you can try this as early as you want for anything with a medium time. Maybe it'll end before the server comes back up and you win without a fight.
Anyone who's been selling things should do it the ebay way and make sure their auctions end something right before "prime time" so raiders can log on and buy things from the AH before heading off to where they're going. At worst you want them to end sometime right when the prime time raiding season is over, that way raiders can bid on things when they're feeling good about themselves for being awesome, or depressed and want to find a way to overcompensate for their lack of progress.
Then again, anyone smart enough to think of all this, is probably putting up auctions with buyouts of no more than %20 higher than their opening bid price anyway to prevent anything unfortunate from happening, while letting people feel they're able to control the price of something if they want.
Kristian Cee Aug 14th 2007 2:24PM
A good magician never reveals how their trick is performed, Elizabeth. For shame!
Andrew Hartsell Aug 14th 2007 2:27PM
Dang it...one of my AH secrets spoiled! What's next...telling people to put the Expert First Aid books up for a 3g buyout?