Gold Capped: Quick Auctions Poster does the undercutting for you
by Basil Berntsen 
Sep 22nd 2010 at 9:00PM
Quick Auctions Poster is here, and it's going to change your life. It was written by one of the auctioneers who inhabit the Just My Two Copper forums, and here's the description of what it does, straight from the download page:
In essence, you can fill your bags up with stock, and instead of using QA3 to post a single batch, it will keep refreshing your scan for you while you wander off to do something else. It will keep automatically undercutting everyone until you run out of stock.This addon is a plugin for Quick Auctions that adds a checkbox to the auction house posting frame with which you can toggle continuous scanning and posting of Quick Auctions. It saves you the effort of hitting the post button whenever a scan has finished. Sadly, because this Quick Auctions button doesn't have a name and its function is private, this action can't be macroed, but this addon manages to obtain the correct button and simulates a click on it.
There's only one button the addon adds, and that's the one at the top of the following image:
Once you check the box labeled "Continue posting after initial post," you will keep relisting your inventory, only undercutting by your QA3 settings when someone undercuts you. You need to check in every half-hour or so to cancel all your undercut auctions as well as pick up mail.
This would be most useful in situations where there is very little deposit cost; however, there's a minimum of 1 silver per auction since the last patch. If you're going to use this on glyphs or enchant scrolls, be aware that you're putting yourself at a slight risk for churning through lost deposit money.
This would be most useful in situations where there is very little deposit cost; however, there's a minimum of 1 silver per auction since the last patch. If you're going to use this on glyphs or enchant scrolls, be aware that you're putting yourself at a slight risk for churning through lost deposit money.
This looks unfair!
I know -- but now that some people use it, anyone who doesn't use it is basically allowing himself to be priced out of the market. Now, instead of whoever posted latest being the deciding factor in who gets the business, it will be the person who is willing to go to the lowest price. This is good for buyers, because competing auctioneers won't win business because they happened to be the last to log in but because they have a lower bottom limit on their prices.
My esteemed co-host on Call To Auction, Markco, holds that this new tool is not breaking the terms of service. He may be right, but I suspect it's probably not an intended use of the addon development tools provided by Blizzard. We've seen situations like this before:
- Auctioneer used to have a feature called BottomFeeder that would trawl the auction house for cheap deals; it ended up getting removed on the advice of Blizzard.
- AVR was deliberately broken by Blizzard because it trivialized certain parts of the game.
Some tips for effective usage
When you are setting up, remember that the more stock you have in your bags, the more undercut cycles you have. Assuming your competitors will be using Quick Auctions Poster, you have two ways to beat them: have more stock than they do, or have a lower threshold than they do.
When you are setting up, remember that the more stock you have in your bags, the more undercut cycles you have. Assuming your competitors will be using Quick Auctions Poster, you have two ways to beat them: have more stock than they do, or have a lower threshold than they do.
If you elect to have more stock than your competitors, you should consider the maximum stack size when you're deciding the markets in which to use this. Cut gems, for example, cannot be stacked. The new metric you should consider is the profit per inventory slot, and this will depend on how often you expect to have to undercut before you reach the bottom of your opponent's pile, as well as how many you think you can sell in a night.
If you go in the direction of trying to out-price your competitors, remember that you can't shock them into another market. QA3 doesn't get bored or upset -- it will just continue to list until your stock is cheaper than it's willing to sell for. My threshold is usually set to my cost plus 10 percent; however, it gets messy. Some players consider the cost of their goods what they paid for the raw mats before processing, and some people prefer to use what they could sell the half-finished goods for. For example: If a stack of Adder's Tongue costs 12g, and you can sell an Ink of the Sea for 1g and Snowfall Ink for 10g, how much does a glyph that takes a single IotS cost? If you base it on the market price for ink, remember that you'd never be able to sell all the ink you put into glyphs and vellum, and trying to do so would drop the price down significantly. If you base it on the cost of the source herbs, you will get an average of six IotS and one snowfall per stack. Did those snowfalls cost you 6g and the IotS 1g each? Or half a gold for each IotS and 9g for the snowfall?
Maximize your profits with more advice from Gold Capped, plus the author's Call to Auction podcast. Do you have questions about selling, reselling and building your financial empire on the auction house? Basil is now taking questions for a special series, "Ask an auctioneer," at basil@wow.com.Filed under: Economy, Add-Ons, Gold Capped
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Jason Sep 22nd 2010 9:08PM
"this addon manages to obtain the correct button and simulates a click on it."
I have a feeling people are going to get banned for this. Blizz always says they want a physical click so that people don't afk, like this addon enables.
Oriflame Sep 22nd 2010 9:58PM
Yeah, this really looks like an epic way to look to a GM exactly like you're using glider.
Hopefully blizzard breaks it, but hopefully no one cool soaks a ban for using it.
Skrotus Sep 22nd 2010 10:12PM
Simulating clicks? How can anyone think this operates within the rules? Why is wowinsider advertising such an obviously illegal addon? I'm just a little shocked. Editorial control, please!
Sleutel Sep 22nd 2010 10:29PM
I look forward to a slew of suspensions and bans with girlish glee.
Heilig Sep 22nd 2010 10:32PM
"now that some people use it, anyone who doesn't use it is basically allowing himself to be priced out of the market."
Or, instead of using it, you can petition GM's and email the Blizzard hack report email to try to get them to break such an obviously unfair addon. The only reason it's not broken yet is because not a lot of people use it and it doesn't impact a lot of people.
Speeding on the interstate because everyone else is doing it doesn't make it any less illegal. Using this addon because everyone else is using it doesn't make it any less wrong or unfair. This addon pretty much only works for Glyphs since they're the only things that are cheap enough and stack well to make its use feasible. If you are up against someone using it, find another market until Blizzard breaks it. One guy robbing banks and not going to jail doesn't make it okay for you to stop working and rob banks too.
Hih Sep 22nd 2010 10:38PM
I asked on the Customer Service forums, and it actually looks like the addon is "ok".
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=26859119513&sid=1
Which is unfortunate, because this addon is pretty disgusting.
Sleutel Sep 22nd 2010 10:41PM
@Hih:
Looks like they may be hedging their bets. Addon name has been edited out of the OP and the Blue post now says:
"Searching the Auction House for a deal is fine, using that information to undercut others is as well. What you must always be mindful of is... does what you are using automate actions?
If it is able to actually place the sales for you without you actively participating, yes, avoid using it."
tatsumasa Sep 22nd 2010 11:34PM
that gm said he's not familiar with the addon. this addon allows you to do multiple things with one button spread out over time - the way blizzard has set up macros makes this impossible; why would you think they would allow an addon to do the same thing?
also, what happens when a hundred people on your server have this? or five hundred? then everyone gets undercut til the last person's bottom threshold is met. this would destroy markets due to people who have excess gold via buying it illegally, people who set their threshold lower than mat costs, and people who just want to be dicks to screw everyone else.
shame on you wow.com for advertising this addon like it's a good tool.
Jaya Sep 22nd 2010 11:48PM
Hih:
I saw that post as well. What the Blue actually said was "If it is able to actually place the sales for you without you actively participating, yes, avoid using it." It sounds like this addon does just that.
I too am very disappointed to see this being recommended on this site.
Toggle Sep 23rd 2010 12:06AM
While I agree that this seems sketchy, further down the thread a blue says that if they don't like it, they'll break it.
I think, the thing that differentiates this from a bot is that this is LOA instead of being an outside program. I think Blizzard handles these situations differently.
Hih Sep 23rd 2010 12:26AM
Jaya, I'm glad to see this addon featured. AVR didn't get broken by Blizzard until it was featured on MMO-Champ and became popular. Exposing this addon is the best way to get it broken the fastest.
Oriflame Sep 23rd 2010 12:36AM
@ toggle just above
while they say that they'll break it if they want to, that will not help anyone who gets a ban for happily posting auctions ever 10 seconds while a GM psts them to ask about reports that they are botting and doesn't get a reply.
skeeeeetchy.
Zerotorescue Sep 23rd 2010 4:54AM
I suppose the text was a bit vague in the past. Basically it's nothing different from a /click command in a macro, except that it still won't allow secure code to be ran (so it remains completely legal). I changed this part out of the text to prevent confusion.
Zerotorescue Sep 23rd 2010 5:20AM
@Oriflame "Yeah, this really looks like an epic way to look to a GM exactly like you're using glider."
Glider sends a keypress to WoW through an external application, simulating a hardware event. Older versions did a /script PostButton:Click() (note that won't work, just using "PostButton" as an example) which Blizzard should be able to recognize over an actual keypress. The last version quit using this functionality and just calls the direct function of the Quick Auctions addon, similar to how QA calls the "PostAuction" (again, just pulling names from a void) function of the WoW API.
@Skrotus "Simulating clicks? How can anyone think this operates within the rules? Why is wowinsider advertising such an obviously illegal addon? I'm just a little shocked. Editorial control, please!"
Again, sorry for the confusing text. It merely activates the keypress event bound to the button, it doesn't really click it but it would give the exact same results.
@Sleutel "I look forward to a slew of suspensions and bans with girlish glee."
I have yet to see any record of bans occuring for using such addons. It's a know fact addons used to speak cross-faction are illegal and WILL get you banned, but I have yet to find a single record of the use of any other addons resulting in a ban.
@Heilig "Or, instead of using it, you can petition GM's and email the Blizzard hack report email to try to get them to break such an obviously unfair addon. The only reason it's not broken yet is because not a lot of people use it and it doesn't impact a lot of people."
Precisely. I feel like Basil's post is here not to encourage the use, but to get the addon functionality disabled. This is one of my wishes too, I would much prefer an AH where I'd have to post no more than once every 4 hours (preferably even longer) rather than have to keep my other account logged in all day long but my realm has been plagued with campers doing similar activity and if I find it impossible to beat them (and Blizzard doesn't want to investigate it), then I'll join them as well as I could without risky my account.
@Hih, thanks for verifying it again, and again. ;)
Again, Blizzard can just set a flag to shut this specific addon down and it only requires a server restart to take effect. To disable similar functionality within other addons would require them to change a similar flag, but that would probably require a tiny patch (similar to AVR).
moonblaze Sep 23rd 2010 7:06AM
When I post auctions, I search the current auctions, check the price differences, the amount of stacks currently posted, consider the demand, the time of the day and more. With other words, I put a lot of thoughts into how I undercut other sellers and try to uphold a healthy economy.
So this guy has undercut drastically and I avoid undercutting further because that's just idiotic. You either buyout his wares and re-sell them at the intended price or just let it sell out on its own, knowing your items will be next in the line. Now this add-on comes into play and puts 20-30 new items at an even lower price because the auctioneer didn't actually scan the auction house himself but just "automated the process" to "save time" "playing a game".
I'm sorry, but if the auction house doesn't interest you, don't try to make shortcuts by making some robot do your auctioning for you. You're ruining it for the rest of us.
Oriflame Sep 23rd 2010 11:39AM
In reply to Zerotorescue,
I'm no addon expert, and i certainly believe you that this adheres to the current letter of the law and could be differentiated from something like glider with some investigation, I don't think it makes it much less risky to use.
GMs are great folks I'm sure, but they are sure far from consistent, and they have a lot of discretion in how they administer their duties. If you look like you're botting (and with this addon, you certainly will), you risk getting banned for botting.
Looks like a bot, smells like a bot, gets banned like a bot... might not be a bot technically, but that will not help with the ban most likely.
catharsis80 Sep 23rd 2010 1:30PM
Blizzard can ban us for this when they start banning the Chinese gold farmers. How about that?
wutsconflag Sep 22nd 2010 9:09PM
Well, this could make things interesting REAL quick.
I foresee this getting broken just like Bottom Feeder did because it's doing something for you without you needing to be at the computer to do it.
Hih Sep 22nd 2010 9:12PM
This isn't going to last for very long.
Basil Berntsen Sep 23rd 2010 7:35AM
Exactly.