Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Major changes to the auction house and game economy
by Basil Berntsen 
Feb 19th 2010 at 8:00PM
Professions
Runed Orbs: Recipes which require this item have had their material requirements significantly reduced.
Frozo the Renowned has moved into the Dalaran Magus Commerce Exchange and will be trading your Frozen Orbs for various other trade goods.
Update: Omega points out in the comments that Zarhym posted a list on the forums of what we'll be able to buy :
Crusader Orb (6)
Runed Orb (4)
Eternal Fire
Eternal Earth
Eternal Water
Eternal Air
Eternal Life
Eternal Shadow
Frost Lotus
Pattern: Frosty Flying Carpet [Tailors Only] (6)
Inscription
- Most recipes that required 2 inks now only require 1.
- Titansteel Bar: Creating this item no longer results in a cooldown.
- Glacial Bag: Creating this item now invokes a 7-day cooldown.
- The cooldown and location requirements have been removed from creating Moonshroud, Spellweave and Ebonweave.
Auction House
- If the Auction House on a realm is unavailable for any reason, an alert will pop up informing players who attempt to access it.
- Players can now Right-Click to place an item in the Auction frame.
- Entire stacks of a specific item type can be placed in the Auction frame and several options have been added for choosing how to list auctions.
- Stack Size: If a stack of items has been added to the Auction frame, players can select the size of the stack they wish to sell. If an invalid stack size is entered (i.e. a stack of 21 Saronite Ore), the Create Auction button will be grayed out.
- Number of Stacks: In addition to selecting the size of a stack, players can select how many stacks of an item they wish to sell (i.e. if a player has a total of 43 Saronite Ore in the Auction frame, they can choose to list 2 stacks of 20, 4 stacks of 10, 8 stacks of 5, 43 stacks of 1, etc. If the number and amount of stacks listed results in a remainder, the left-over items will be placed back in the player's bags automatically).
- Stack Size and Number of Stacks are linked mathematically so that altering the variables of one may automatically calculate the amount of the other (i.e. if a player puts 20 in the Stack Size field and 43 Saronite Ore are in the Auction frame, the Number of Stacks field will change to 2 by default. If a player only wishes to sell one stack of 20 Saronite Ore, the Number of Stacks field can be manually changed to 1).
- Price: Players can now choose to input the price of an item Per Stack or Per Item by selecting either option from a pull-down. If Per Item is selected and a player is selling a stack of that item, the Auction House will multiply the selected Per Item price by the amount of that item in the stack. If Per Stack is selected, the player can enter the total price he or she wishes to charge for each stack of that item being listed.
- Auction Post Completion Bar: If multiple items or stacks of items are being listed at once by a player, a Posting completion bar will appear showing the total progress of each individual auction being listed once the Create Auction button is selected. The greater the number of individual listings being made in a single press of the Create Auction button, the longer this process will take. Players can still browse the Auction House while the Posting completion bar is in progress, but moving around will interrupt the progress, similar to moving while attempting to create multiple bandages with First Aid. Just as with creating bandages, auctions that were completed prior to the character moving or otherwise canceling the actions will successfully be listed.
Let's talk about the elephant in the room first. I haven't had a chance to touch on this yet in my regular column, but inscription is one of the largest money-making professions. There are many popular guides and addons out there written for scribes who want to sell glyphs, a lot of the recent gold capped players got there with inscription. The ink requirement change reduces the number of herbs needed to make glyphs, so we can expect and increase in supply (and probable decrease in price) of glyphs, and the same increase in supply for all other ink-derived products (like weapon and armor vellums, and runescrolls of fortitude).
This is going to have spin-off effects on other markets-- even though the drop rates of Frost Lotus will be buffed, scribes making glyphs are a huge component of herb demand, and herbalists will find less demand for their wares. This may lead to lower production as farmers move to more profitable areas, which will reduce the supply of Frost Lotus. In addition, since vellums will be cheaper, enchanting scrolls will be marginally cheaper to make.
Next up, cooldown removals. Titansteel Bar, Moonshroud, Spellweave and Ebonweave have had their cooldowns removed, so you can expect a large increase in the supply of these and a large increase in demand for their mats. These include eternal life, fire, shadow, and earth, which are already in fairly high demand. Like when they removed the cooldown to transmute titanium, I expect that the lower price for these mining and tailoring products will spur a large surge in demand that will keep prices from getting too low.
Almost equally importantly, I'll bet anyone that these changes to the AH interface are going to break all the addons we use. It's not all bad, though, because the features they are adding are something that we currently need addons to do. No more manually separating stacks we want to sell and the manually putting them into boxes for people without an auction addon. This does, however, mean that people who relied on a clumsy UI as a barrier to entry for their competitors will find themselves up against some more casual competition.
This is going to have spin-off effects on other markets-- even though the drop rates of Frost Lotus will be buffed, scribes making glyphs are a huge component of herb demand, and herbalists will find less demand for their wares. This may lead to lower production as farmers move to more profitable areas, which will reduce the supply of Frost Lotus. In addition, since vellums will be cheaper, enchanting scrolls will be marginally cheaper to make.
Next up, cooldown removals. Titansteel Bar, Moonshroud, Spellweave and Ebonweave have had their cooldowns removed, so you can expect a large increase in the supply of these and a large increase in demand for their mats. These include eternal life, fire, shadow, and earth, which are already in fairly high demand. Like when they removed the cooldown to transmute titanium, I expect that the lower price for these mining and tailoring products will spur a large surge in demand that will keep prices from getting too low.
Almost equally importantly, I'll bet anyone that these changes to the AH interface are going to break all the addons we use. It's not all bad, though, because the features they are adding are something that we currently need addons to do. No more manually separating stacks we want to sell and the manually putting them into boxes for people without an auction addon. This does, however, mean that people who relied on a clumsy UI as a barrier to entry for their competitors will find themselves up against some more casual competition.
Patch 3.3.3 is up on the PTR and as with every new patch there's a flurry of new information. Check out the official patch notes, changes to battlegrounds, new achievements that hint at future content, new models (and more new models) in the game files, things to do with those pesky frozen orbs, UI updates, and perhaps more to come before it hits the live realms.Filed under: News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
zhendo Feb 19th 2010 8:09PM
You mean the 120 frozen orbs I have accumulated will actually be useful?
/singletear
Hotshizzle Feb 19th 2010 8:14PM
You mean those 120 frozen orbs I sold were actually useful?
/cry
NiteCon Feb 19th 2010 8:19PM
I hope those 120 frozen orbs I just bought from ah will bring me good profit.
/glee
Zalvi24 Feb 19th 2010 8:23PM
you mean all those 120 frozen orb that i made other ppl pass on while doing randoms and told them it was to level JC are gonna be useful?
Banic Rhys Feb 19th 2010 8:39PM
But seriously people, I suggest you all buy as many Frozen Orbs as you can while they're still worthless.
Becuase the cost of Frozen Orb
Banic Rhys Feb 19th 2010 8:40PM
Because the cost of Frozen Orbs is going to skyrocket over the next few weeks.
Anyone else notice how GREAT this commenting system is?
Mr. Tastix Feb 19th 2010 9:12PM
WE SHOULD BOYCOTT THE COMMENT SYSTEM! But I agree, buy all those Frozen Orbs! Today is a goddamn FANTASTIC day for the person who gets surprisingly good rolls on Frozen Orbs. AKA... ME!
lol123123123123123 Feb 19th 2010 10:12PM
for anyone woundering this is what u can trade the frozen orbs for( from mmo-champion)
Crusader Orb (6)
Runed Orb (4)
Eternal Fire
Eternal Earth
Eternal Water
Eternal Air
Eternal Life
Eternal Shadow
Frost Lotus
Pattern: Frosty Flying Carpet [Tailors Only] (6)
im guessing the numbers in the brackets are the cost '
oh also the retaking of Gnomeregan achievements are in the files
Sumanai Feb 20th 2010 12:28AM
"the cost of Frozen Orbs is going to skyrocket over the next few weeks"
next few weeks? frozen orbs are 50g and way up on my server as we speak... and it's 5AM over here (EU). someone just read the news and bought all of the dozens of 5gold-ish orbs at the AH.
Abbadon Feb 20th 2010 1:32AM
Damn... I was late to the party as well.
Frozen Orbs have already jumped from 5g to 22g on my server. Oh well...
I'm really looking forward to the ability to trade orbs for stuff. I'm sure prices will even out, have been getting tired of seeing Eternal Fires for 35-45g each.
And this settles the need/greed debate, Frozen Orbs will now be Needed on by everyone!
lemur Feb 20th 2010 12:24PM
@lol123
Wait...REALLY? Retaking of Gnomeragan? I literally gasped outloud. As a player of multiple gnomes and a draenai priest that will become a gnome in Cata, this fills me with glee.
Jarvish Mar 23rd 2010 2:29AM
@Abbadon
No, the frozen orbs will now be greeded on by everyone, as it's a new mechanic they've implemented. No more needing on orbs, yay!
OT: This change is very nice, being able to buy eternals and lotuses for the orbs everyone now has a chance to get. It's a win/win situation (ye, you danish people will know what I mean) ;)
- Jar
Drakkenfyre Feb 19th 2010 8:12PM
Why are Frozen Orbs listed under Inscription? They are used in more than one profession.
Basil Berntsen Feb 19th 2010 9:23PM
That was mixed up when the break was being moved around. Fixed, and thanks :)
Leelad Feb 19th 2010 8:14PM
I have never used the advanced features of it but can someone confirm if these changes all but make auctioneer defunct and pointless?
Sedirex Feb 19th 2010 8:44PM
Absolutely not. The single most useful feature of Auctioneer is the ability to batch post. As an example, I can set all of the glyphs I regularly sell to automatically post in single stacks for 5% less than the competition with a single click. That's how people run their thousand glyph industries, and Blizzard will never make something like that available by default, for obvious reasons.
tutti Feb 19th 2010 8:44PM
No. The PTR isn't up yet. Though based on the description I'm guessing it won't - auction addons use the API to control auctions, not the user interface. You might see some graphical issues, but the functionality shouldn't be a large issue.
It's a guess, mind you. I could be wrong.
Viper007Bond Feb 19th 2010 8:18PM
The removal of the CD on the tailoring cloth is HUGE. Tailors need to sell all of their CD cloth ASAP before the price absolutely plummets.
Anathemys Feb 19th 2010 9:01PM
So is the Titansteel change.
Mechano-Hog here I come!!!!
MechaKingGhidra Feb 19th 2010 10:21PM
Actually, with the week-long cooldown on the Glacial Bag now, one could say the price of the cloth could stay the same up until the change actually hits. A lot of people will be rushing to grab this before it's a matter of mind-numbing time to make even a single one.
Time is money, friend.