Why Blizzard needs to put AH data on the Armory
There is a certain party, a regular emailer to us among our readers, who believes that we here at WoW Insider take a little too long at the start of our posts to get to the actual point of each story, so in this one, I'll just get right down to it: Blizzard needs to put Auction House information on the Armory.I've been on the grind to the 5000g for my epic flying mount lately, and I've been playing the Auction House like a demon: calculating, buying, selling, and crafting my way to as much gold as I can throw together. And while Auctioneer has definitely helped, the best way I've found to track prices and make sure I get the most for my time in the AH is just to see the prices themselves -- no average price calculated by Auctioneer is worth enough as seeing the real thing. And that's where Blizzard comes in -- while there are a few sites that attempt to track prices with various methods, they have actual, constant access to the prices on every server. And they have a great place to put them: on the Armory.
The item pages on the Armory right now are practically empty -- besides some vendor and reagent information, there's almost nothing there (especially compared to, say, Wowhead). Giving player access to AH information would pull them into the game even when they couldn't play, not to mention let some of Blizzard's most talented web programmers -- their fans -- at data that they could do tons of great stuff with. Want a text alert when your favorite mats drop in price, or when there's room on the AH to finally sell off those Elixirs of Agility you've got? By passing out AH info to the Armory, Blizzard could give fans access to the data needed to make their own great tools, not only leaving Blizzard free to work on actual development, but giving us Auction House haunters all the access we need to track prices and have that much more fun playing the AH.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Add-Ons, Making money
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Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Joe Aug 21st 2008 9:24AM
There's already a site that does scans the AH and puts it on the web...
http://www.wowecon.com/
Troy Gates Aug 21st 2008 1:16PM
I use have used wowecon for over a year and have made about 20k gold from the AH. Its a great service for a cheap monthly price.
dawnseven Aug 21st 2008 10:48AM
Any arguments of whether or not this is actually feasible aside (I agree with the comments about the current state of the armory and the store fiasco) I don't see a problem with this, in theory. I think by and large the people that would hate it are the ones that actually get more than average play time. If you're in game a lot and haunting the auction house you're getting the lion's share of the bargains, yes? Certainly you don't want me logging in from work a few times a day and cutting into your profits. Heh.
(And I totally agree on adding a WTB section. That would be awesome. Bog lord tendrils are not a big money maker (at least on my server). People just vendor them rather than take the time to send them to bank alt and list them for a couple silver. If I could post that I was looking for them though and not have to spam Trade that would be cool.)
Jafari Aug 21st 2008 1:03PM
While we're talking about the AH, I have a different idea -- in game.
A few patches ago, I thought they were going to implement better searchability on the AH. For example, search for items with Stam on them, or spell damage.
That is all I want. Just some checkboxes I can click for stats I need so my warlock doesn't have to browse through pages of Str/Agi/proc on hit swords just to find a high Stam sword to accompany that new offhand.
I never did learn why this never when live...
Vidi Aug 22nd 2008 9:45PM
The armory still has a character of mine listed as guilded. He has been unguilded for almost a year now.
And Mr Schramm thinks Blizzard can push current Ah info onto the armory.
Wow Mike, please pass the pipe. I want some of what you're smoking.