Are Auction Houses coming to Shattrath?
by Dan O'Halloran 
Aug 21st 2007 at 1:23PM
In a word, no. Blizzard blue Nethaera posted in response to the umpteenth request for an Auction House in Shattrath. At least this time we got an explanation behind the decision.
Blizzard feels an AH in Shattrath will eliminate the only reason for players to interact with others in older cities. They reason players can use the Shatt portals to get to the AH in the older cities and then activate their hearthstone to get back to the Outlands.
This plan also spreads out the population. Anyone remember when their was only one AH for each faction? Ironforge was known as Lagforge. Think what would happen to your framerate should they put an Auction House in the Outlands capital. Yeah, not pretty.
Of course "not currently planned" doesn't mean "never." When the WotLK expansion launches and Dalaran becomes the player hub, they may reconsider. Until then, don't be getting friendly with any Innkeeper other than the ones in Shattrath, because your hearthstone setting isn't going to be changing for a long time. Unless you're a mage.
Filed under: Economy, The Burning Crusade
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
chris.babin Aug 21st 2007 1:33PM
If they did, would it be Neutral and linked with the Goblin auction houses (they could put it in Area52 instead), or would there be a seperate auction house for each faction? Or for even more fun... seperate them up via Aldor/Scryer lines, just to totally screw people up.
Dryss Aug 21st 2007 1:33PM
I'm glad they're not putting an AH in Shat. I lag there enough as is.
By the way, the blue post you quoted is two months old.
Chilblain Aug 21st 2007 4:39PM
Good decision. If I wasn't forced to go back to Stormwind's Auction House, nobody would ever beg me for gold or ask me to run them "thru" VC.
Abso-SiN Aug 21st 2007 1:42PM
They should put a horde/alliance AH in Halaa depending on who currently owns the city and a neutral one in area52.
rick gregory Aug 21st 2007 1:54PM
Oh, yes, because the interactions I have with people as the beg me for money is just SOOO valuable.
ON the positive side, I've been politely asked a bunch of times to open lock boxes for folks who assume (rightly in my case at least) that a 70 rogue can open the box they looted - it probably makes life easier for those folks and I don't mind doing it at all.
But geez, Blizz... I DON'T interact with t he old world - just the AH. And Karazhan.
OrionPaxt Aug 21st 2007 1:52PM
I think it is a good idea that they leave the auction houses in Azeroth. Logistically how could you link a faction AH in the outlands without throwing off the whole game lore ? Also you can always make an auction house toon,leave it in a faction city and send your auction items to it.
Sylythn Aug 21st 2007 1:55PM
@5 - especially simple these days because of the new instant mail between characters on the same account.
Candina@WH Aug 21st 2007 1:57PM
'aution house in Halaa depending on who controls it'
While I LOVE the idea. I don't know how the programming mechanics would work. Probably not too difficult to over come.
It would make taking and holding Halaa more important and lend a greater sense of urgency.
How about putting class trainers there also?
mrobin604 Aug 21st 2007 2:06PM
They are just trying to make sure that banker alts have a future.
Because seriously, when is the last time most people have ever sent a main to Orgrimmar or UC to auction anything?
If you want people to really go back to the old world, give us heroic versions of the old dungeons :)
FireStar Aug 21st 2007 2:18PM
Get a bank alt. I don't buy much on it, just sell. It would be nice for a portal Back to Shattrah.
Morrigän Aug 21st 2007 2:27PM
Blizz should put more effort if they want the 70s to interact more with the "old world". This is a sad, sad way to do it.
Dhestroi Aug 21st 2007 2:51PM
Sure,
They don't want us to leave older cities behind, but they threw out the old raid content without a second glance. Scaling Nax/MC/BWL is something I see as far more important than having us interact with old cities. If we were able to benefit from those older instances, Blizz would find a lot more players going and coming from Azeroth, AH or no AH.
...IMO
Kyane Aug 21st 2007 3:08PM
@12
While revisiting old content with new difficulty is nice, I'd have to wonder the long term benefits for the population. Sure, adding new loot tables depending on the difficulty would keep people coming back, but after you've run Strat/Scholo/MC/BWL/etc normally ( and for some people spent months in MC/BWL/AQ/Nax )going back to revisit that content is nowhere near as exciting as NEW content ( rather than just harder old content ).
Heroics proved to be a very good addition for Blizz, both in the time sink for rep needed to run them and keeping people running instances. I don't seem them going back and adding heroic difficulty to older dungeons as opposed to adding new dungeons though.
Just my 2 cents.
Todd Aug 21st 2007 3:20PM
Thank God I'm a mage.
Scruffy Aug 21st 2007 3:35PM
@3
They need a damn mailbox in Halaa first. >:(
Gustav Aug 21st 2007 3:47PM
I just love Thunder Bluff too much to leave it behind...
And as #14 said, thank god I'm a Mage!
siorai Aug 21st 2007 4:04PM
I really don't mind not having an AH in Shatt. What I would like to see though, since Blizz is forcing us to burn our HS to get back to Outland is to have our HS cooldown reduced once we hit Outland. Cut it in half to 30 minutes and I'd be pretty happy.
fbp Aug 21st 2007 4:57PM
Not putting an AH in Outland because people need to visit Azeroth is a LAME, POOR, and DYSFUNCTIONAL excuse.
That means, you broke the game Blizzard. It needs to be fixed, give people better reasons to visit Azeroth other than the AH, Class trainers, and Champions Hall(or the horde equivalent).
New zones? New quests? New instances? New something/anything?
Neutral AH in Area 52 and Alliance/Horde AH should be placed somewhere, I LOVE the Halaa idea.
I am going to repeat myself, but the excuse not to bring the AH to Outland because of wanting Outland people to visit Azeroth shows poor planning and design.
Just give it to the players and work out the details later. You will have to do it for WotLK, so might as well work out any kinks that will need fixed now. Plenty of open areas for new 61+ zones in Azeroth,
Argent Aug 21st 2007 5:16PM
a switch-hitting AH in halaa would be awesome. great incentive to actually swap the city back and forth.
that said, i never had much of a problem with shat not having an AH (but then, my AH mule is my 60 mage...)
RogueJedi86 Aug 21st 2007 6:45PM
@#4/OrionPaxt
Logically it wouldn't make sense to have an Auction House in Outland linked to auction houses in Azeroth, but logically, linked banks in Shattrath and Azeroth make no sense either. Does that mean they need to remove banks from Shattrath City? Being able to instantly receive an item I bought in Stormwind, even though someone put it up from Darnassus/The Exodar? Makes no sense. Back to non-linked Auction Houses.
Really though, the Halaa idea sounds awesome. Bomb it real fast, take the town, and there's your auction house. The only problem I can see is on unbalanced servers, where Alliance severely outnumbers Horde, or Alliance sucks at PvP. In those cases, Halaa would never change hands.