Gold Capped News: Critical AH addons broken by patch 4.0.1
by Basil Berntsen 
Oct 8th 2010 at 7:00PM
If you were to install the PTR right now and try to post a batch of auctions for sale with your favorite addon, there's a good chance it wouldn't work. Blizzard has changed the way that addons can interact with the auction house so that it's no longer possible to queue up a large volume of auctions and let them post while you read my columns.
Both Auctioneer and Quickauctions 3 have been hit hard, obviously. These are the most commonly used addons for queuing up a bunch of auctions. The rule previously seemed to be that we're not allowed to buy in batches, but we are allowed to sell in batches. Well, it looks like Blizzard has decided that we can no longer sell in batches, either. In addition, QA3 has lost its ability to automatically cancel auctions that have been undercut. The new patch requires a hardware event per action, and this has not (at the time of publishing) been written into these addons.
So what is a batch? Since you can queue up multiple stacks of the same item using the default UI, that seems to be allowed still. What is no longer allowed is putting together a list of different types of items that you want to sell at the same time. Take heart, dear reader: There is a workaround!
First, the workaround is fortunately not to simply manually post all your auctions. When you have 300+ glyphs (for example) and dozens of types of cut gems that you probably want to be listing for all the new demand that 4.0.1 will generate, sitting there with the default posting interface does not cut it. It doesn't show you the similar auctions you will be competing with in the same frame, and it doesn't suggest a remotely intelligent default price.
That said, to fix QA3 (only, for now), simply download and install this addon. [edit: credit where credit's due. This was written by the awesome folks who spend their days at the JMTC forums, specifically Zerotorescue, the author of the QA-poster addon]. Without it, QA3 will just hang. With it, you're presented with a handy-dandy little box saying, "Do you want to post this auction?" It doesn't seem to work with Auctioneer (currently, the box comes up but doesn't seem to work when you click it), but I have faith in the Auctioneer dev team's ability to get a new build out fairly soon when its product stops working. Still, gems and glyphs are expected to be the big sellers come patch day, and those are both markets that QA3 does very well.
Apparently, addons are still allowed to automatically price for you, and that's one of the two biggest advantages that QA3 gives us, in addition to automated batch selling and canceling. The only change is that you need to click once for every group of auctions. Luckily, you can still keybind the action of clicking the Yes button: Simply create a macro with this line in it.
/click StaticPopup1Button1It will work for canceling as well as posting. Drag the macro to a button, keybind that button, and you're set. This type of automation was covered in another article: same principle, different application. It's not perfect, but at least it's better than using the default UI to post several hundred types of products by hand.
Why now?
I am not going to hazard a guess about what drove the fine folks at the Blizzard UI dev team to make this undocumented change to the functions used by these addons specifically to service the glyph and gem markets, but it's a little rough that it's happening simultaneously with a patch that's expected to drive more demand for them than any other patch in the history of the game. Patch 4.0.1 is drastically changing the desirability of stats to many classes in the game, and a huge number of people will be regemming from armor penetration to something other than crit (which is what ArP gems will give you after the patch). Also, now that we can learn every glyph in the game, there's going be a huge surge in demand for glyphs as people scramble to get one of each.
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, Cataclysm, Gold Capped
Reader Comments (Page 7 of 7)
uncaringbear Oct 12th 2010 10:39AM
To all the folks rejoicing about these changes, please don't come back crying when you suddenly wake up one day and discover that prices are higher for some strange reason. As a consumer, I've always valued competition and undercutting by the sellers.
Toliman Oct 12th 2010 12:12PM
i fully expect glyphs and gems to be hitting 500g+ due to this change, even the useless ones, so i dont really see the benefit of a hardware event limitation.
they could have changed the AH system to queue/stack single items, but that would require work on the core AH interface, or queue/stack items for the crafting interface as well,
i.e. convert 20x of ore to 10x bars in one server transaction.
or deposit 1200 cloth , pay a deposit for 2-3 days., buyers can purchase in stack sizes from the one listing.
it would reduce complexity/reposting costs, as you could charge prohibitively more for short term deposits, and less, the longer it stayed up. also increase the ease of use for non auctioneers, and discourage undercutting in short term vs long term deposits, but ehh.
who wants a realistic AH anyway.
Eirik Oct 12th 2010 2:31PM
I think that reposting charges are something they are ... less interested in reducing. Drag on the market, pulling cash out of the economy.
... though I think that vanity mounts and Fast Flying are the primary ways money gets pulled out these days.
Kendra Oct 12th 2010 1:34PM
I find it unforunate Blizzard made these changes. The desire was to hurt the botters/gold farmers when in fact it's only hurting the AH-savvy legitimate players. Do you think that gold farmers will think "Oh, geeze, Blizzard made this against the rules, I'll stop?" They'll continue to bot and do equally as obnoxious things whether you break a legitimate addon or not.
The breaking of QA3 means, for the legitimate users, that we will spend a significant more time posting.
What that means for the majority of people who play, the consumers, is you will pay more for the items you've been enjoying at a cheap rate because people will leave the now time-consuming markets and those left will raise the prices because 1) they can and 2) they need to to make the time they're spending worth it.
The breaking of these add-ons levels no playing field: The playing field was always level, just download the addon and spend 2 seconds learning to use it. All this does is hurt every legitimate WoW player and make things easier for botters.
Syme Oct 12th 2010 4:11PM
This is a step in the right direction. The best thing would be to lock down the Auction House APIs entirely and simply prevent AH addons.
Ras Oct 14th 2010 7:32PM
So good news about QA3 although its original author has abandoned it it is being taken over by the guy the does the scroll master add on. He's even indicated that some time in the distant future the add ons will be integrated
Alexandra Oct 17th 2010 5:36AM
I got QA poster to work by going into the LUA and TOC files and changing all the mentions of "QuickAuctions" to "AuctionProfitMaster" (the new name of the addon from the person that took over QA3). You still have to hit 'Post Auction' each time, but it will cycle through and continue to pop up the 'Post Auction' button after the first cycle just like before.