Posts with tag auction-house

I have had my hand in the cookie jar that is the Auction House a few times during Cataclysm, and if there's one thing I learned, it's that information is your best friend. I downloaded Auctioneer / Auctionator to spot cheap bids and track how my own sales were doing. I browsed The Undermine Journal for data like average prices, standard deviations, and recent auctions. Even WoW Insider's own Gold Capped column helped me identify potential markets and provided general advice. All of these things made my profits possible.

Well, a new tool has entered the mix: Wowscan. I have to admit, at first it struck me as a bit too much like The Undermine Journal. Certainly Wowscan works very similar in that it scans auction data and posts it on its site in a searchable format. Now, I'm no Basil or even a Fox, but after some experimentation it seems to me that there are a few advantages and disadvantages to a site like Wowscan in comparison to TUJ.

First of all, and probably the biggest difference that I've noticed, is that Wowscan has the ability to compile all of its realm data into one searchable list. For example, if you wanted to find the absolute cheapest auction of Reins of the Swift Spectral Tiger, all you have to do is select All Realms and search for it. From all of my dealings with TUJ, I have never found the option to search all of the realms at once. Since most of my use of TUJ was focused on a single realm, searching multiple realms at once never really became an issue for me. This function becomes valuable when you are looking to buy an ultra-rare item and don't care how much money you have to spend on realm transfers to get it.

Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, and esoteroic topics that slip through the cracks.

Before we begin today's Lawbringer, I wanted to give you all your homework for next week's topic. Greg Boyd wrote an excellent article over at Gamasutra about improving the game industry's security and data privacy issues. Blizzard is one of the companies out there with huge online security concerns but seems to get by fairly well. I will examine Blizzard through Boyd's seven steps and show how Blizzard is leading the charge and how other game companies could benefit from Blizzard's trials and tribulations.

Fifteen percent is going to be the new number that people will be talking about for a good, long time. Why? Blizzard has set a standard in the American markets for real-money auction house cuts and fees. With Diablo III literally bursting from its hellish mother's writhing, pestilence-ridden birthing sack, players will soon be entering the world of Sanctuary and wearing out mice so fast that the stress on the peripheral market's demand crushes a generation of hopeful clickers. Diablo III will consume a lot of people's souls for a while, so it's best to get them all prepared now, not later.

Blizzard has begun the arduous process of educating the playerbase about these new and radical systems coming with Diablo III. The real-money auction house is the big ticket item here, proving a safe and secure place for players to interact and auction items, much like they currently do in the seedy, potentially dangerous gray markets for virtual item trades and sales. Going to these sites is the equivalent of going to gold sites, to compare it to a WoW phenom, with the same risks and hazards coupled with the same instant gratification. Why have a company with which you have no recourse have your credit card information, when you could give it to Blizzard instead? At least you know where they live.

I rolled an alt a few weeks ago -- nothing special like the Ironman Challenge, but I had a moment where I wanted to level a character from 1 to 85 on another realm just for the heck of it. So I picked a random realm, medium population, and rolled a worgen. Why a worgen? Well, it had been a while since I'd played through the worgen starting zone, and since I'd recently seen just about everything the Horde had to offer on the 1-to-60 front, I wanted to replay the Alliance experience again.

So I rolled a worgen -- no heirlooms, no gold from outside sources, just me and the quests, like the old days of vanilla WoW. The most important part to me was that I was going to forgo buying any upgrade gear from the Auction House, instead using only what dropped from quests or instances. Call it a moment of vanilla nostalgia if you will, but that's exactly what I had to do on my first character back in 2004, so I was going to do it again. I expected it to be tough; I expected it to take a while before I could even afford a mount at level 20.

I was so, so wrong. By the time I hit level 30, I had a little over 3k gold on my random alt, with little to no effort on my part. And I'm going to tell you exactly how I did it.

It all started with a pair of boots.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Fox Van Allen and Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Feed Fox's ego by emailing him, tweeting him at @foxvanallen, or sacrificing your firstborn to him. And be sure to catch the return of Basil and Fox's podcast, Call to Auction!

Is the World of Warcraft economy broken? Not for everyone. Plenty of people get exactly what they need out of the existing WoW economy. High volumes. Quick sales. Strong profits.

For some, though, the economy is terribly broken. Plenty of folks are marooned on low-population servers with economies that crawl (if an economy even exists at all). There are few sellers and even fewer buyers. These players need help, and Blizzard isn't acting.

But what exactly can Blizzard do to help? Simple, small solutions won't help -- problems this big call for major action. And that's exactly what today's column is all about: major reforms to the WoW economy, any single one of which could right a ship that, for thousands of players, is sinking. For broken servers, a fix. For servers with humming economies, reforms that actually improve things and make the economy better and more fun.

So what are we waiting for? Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps.

Diablo III is one of Blizzard's most ambitious (if not the single most ambitious) launch of a game in the history of video gaming. Blizzard intends on a worldwide mega-event to launch Diablo III simultaneously in every country, with a massive localization undertaking. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into this product. Countless man-hours have been spent toiling behind computer screens and long nights and painful testing. This is the forge where artifacts are made.

And as the mighty hype machine churns and the release date comes closer and closer until the game is announced, the best-laid plans of men and Blizzard begin to feel the sting of friction. Chaos exists amongst the order. Back in September, we learned that South Korea had denied a rating to Diablo III because of concerns over the real money auction house, a new, hotly debated feature coming to the game. More specifically, the South Korean raters felt that the ability to "cash out" on real-money auctions skirted too close to the gambling line.

This was bad. This was really bad. How could a core feature of one of the most hotly debated and fought-over moves in microtransactions to this day be the cause of release hardships? People frantically checked their backlogs of notes. It didn't make sense. South Korea wasn't an issue, they assured themselves. There was no way.

I think we all like to save time in game when doing mundane things so that we can get back to the fun stuff. I also find that World of Warcraft is unable to read my mind and know that I really meant "armor" when I typoed "amror." So out of necessity, I've discovered some tricks to let WoW know what I really mean in a timely fashion.

• Shift-clicking a crafting material in your inventory with the appropriate craft box open will search for patterns that include that mat. I can never remember if my jewelcrafter has already leveled past some gem or other, but with this trick I can easily check. Also, if I pick up some meat and don't know if I have a recipe for it, shift-click searching lets me know. You probably already use this trick for searching in the Auction House, as well.
• Shift-clicking the icon for a letter in your mailbox will put all items from that letter into your inventory. I find this invaluable for sending items to my bank alt. Note: This will delete the letter from your mailbox if there is nothing written in the letter itself.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Every so often, I get asked something to the effect of "What's the fastest way to get 10,000 gold?" It's usually asked by someone who is perpetually poor in game and is looking to get a BoE or some other sort of reward that costs gold. The fastest way for me to get 10,000 gold is to log in and check my mail. My daily haul is many times that and scales based on how much time I have to craft, list, and relist. This isn't a useful answer to someone who lives paycheck to paycheck, though. So what advice would be helpful?

First off, if you're below level 85, get to level 85. This nets you quite a bit of gold simply from quest rewards and vendoring gear you acquire. If you're already level 85, the first thing you need to do is identify how much money you can make per hour running 5-mans for valor points that you can use to sell BoEs. On my realm, I could sell a BoE costing 1,650 VPs for about 10,000 gold. That means every valor point I earn could be worth 6 gold, which makes the 150 points I get from a 5-man worth 900g. I can do seven per week per character with the requisite gear. Also, every trash kill and boss kill has a chance of awarding you with valuables, including enchanting mats (if someone can DE) and BoEs.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Fox and Basil's reboot of Call To Auction, and Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Winter Veil is probably one of the most profitable game holidays. There are lots of achievements and quests people do, and some of these involve acquiring things that can be sold on the Auction House. The most interesting thing is that none of the things people will be needing require a maximum-level character to get and are, in fact, farmable by just about anyone over level 6 or so.

Small Eggs

Let's start with Small Eggs. Five of these are used to make the five Gingerbread Cookies required for the holiday quest Treats for Greatfather Winter. Small eggs are easily farmed, but the demand for them between Dec. 15 and Jan. 2 is more than can reasonably be farmed by any one person. People in the know have been preparing since last year and have stockpiled these eggs.

That said, the bulk needed to meet the demand generated by just about every single active player doing this quest on all their characters is pretty high, and these eggs don't come up on the Auction House that often for cheap. For the next few days until demand drops off a bit, people will buy these for between 2g and 5g, and if you have a character capable of killing level 6 monsters, you can farm hundreds an hour in Eversong Woods outside Silvermoon.

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

I think every last one of you will want me to jump straight to answering this first question, so I'll ditch the clever intro today.

Yurgen asked:

Some sites are saying patch 4.3 will release November 29th, some sites are saying December 6th. Which is it??

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Fox Van Allen and Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aim to show you how to make money on the auction house. Feed Fox's ego by emailing him, tweeting him at @foxvanallen, or by making him a festive fall cookie platter.

Honest, guys, I tried my best. I was there at BlizzCon 2011. I got up and in line at the Q&A panels, determined to ask the Blizzard development team questions about the game's economy.

Ultimately, I was foiled by a bunch of dudes who wasted our time offering shout-outs to their guild (and by my own poor planning of not getting in line two hours before the panel started). But I digress. The fact of the matter is that there's a lot of stuff wrong with the World of Warcraft economy and Auction House. Issues that need to be addressed in the next expansion to promote a fair and level playing field, something WoW has lacked ... well, something the game has lacked for years.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Camping and stalking are two different things, and I got an email from someone facing both asking for help.

I was wondering if you had any advice on discouraging less palatable AH competition? I'm speaking in particular about obsessive AH campers and their stalking tendencies.

I know it's pretty standard for competitors to add each other to their friends (or enemies) list in order to keep an eye on when they're around, but over this expansion I've encountered some behaviours which seem to be pushing the boundaries of what is and isn't OK. Earlier in the year I had one competitor follow me across Stormwind, then to Darnassus, then to the Exodar, and finally to Shattrath where I eventually logged because it was getting beyond creepy to cut a gem and then moments later see this guy targeting me and cutting the same thing.

I'm not an AH camper, but when I am on I'm happy to list/relist against the guys that are – this one following me now seems to be the dominant one on the server (or the most persistent), but I wanted to know if you had any advice on how to discourage this?

The new Guardian Cub, the pet you can buy with real-world currency and exchange for in-game gold, has been available for sale on most realms' Auction Houses for a good 24 hours now. And early reports are looking very favorable for Blizzard; it is now significantly cheaper to buy gold through Blizzard than through one of the less-reputable, third-party Chinese gold sellers.

The price of the Guardian Cub varies wildly by server -- a function of supply and demand. An impromptu Twitter survey suggests that the pet is currently selling for between 6,000 gold and 40,000 gold in game, depending on server size, competition, and a number of other factors. Most realms are currently seeing prices just north of 10,000 gold.

Certainly, the final page of the Guardian Cub saga has yet to be written, and prices will be extraordinarily volatile in the next few days, weeks, and months. Still, even at a conservative exchange rate of $10 for a 10,000-gold pet, players can get a far better (and safer!) deal buying gold through Blizzard via the Guardian Cub than dealing with a gold seller. The difference is stark -- the same amount of gold may cost you $20 or $30 through a third-party site. And even then, you have no guarantee of getting your gold, no guarantee that your account won't be compromised, and no guarantee that your purchase isn't supporting forced labor and account theft.

Will the Guardian Cub kill off third-party gold sales? Probably not, at least on its own. Interest in this new pet simply cannot be sustained long term. But if the last 24 hours of trading on the in-game Auction House are any indication, Blizzard just fired a shot into a multi-billion-dollar gray market.

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Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play?

Wow! Did you see all those cool announcements and awesome World of Warcraft news items that we are currently reporting on? Me too. I'm writing this article much earlier than BlizzCon, so you'll have to excuse my lack of foresight. How about we mailbag us some Lawbringer questions?

Albert wants to know what's up with gold sellers stealing gold and why Blizzard can't just track it and remove it. Seems simple, right?

Hello, love your column. I was wondering if you can explain something. When these gold sellers hack someone's account and move their gold, can't blizzard track where the gold is going and just claim it? I mean i assume they have the tools to do anything in game, they are god. Seems simple enough to do, i got hacked, see where gold went, take it back. do it for a few months and done. am i missing something?

Thanks in advance,

Albert

Thank you for the email, Albert. It probably is not that tough to track currency moves and associated transactions, but it's really about the volume of text and transactions that go on at any given time. It must be hell to search through all the records to find this stuff, even if you know the name and server that people are on.

Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play?

Blizzard recently treated WoW fans to a preview of the Guardian Cub tradable pet, going on sale soon at the Blizzard pet store. Immediately upon hearing that the pet was tradable, readers began inundating me with email and Twitter messages to talk about said cub on The Lawbringer, as this is sort of the thing I fancy myself a connoisseur of. So here we go -- let's talk about the ramifications of these adorable little pets on our server economies.

The Guardian Cub represents a sea change in the nature of the gold selling war from Blizzard's perspective, one that has been coming for a long, long time. With a Blizzard-sanctioned way for players to dip their toes into the waters of pay-for gold, gold buying looks a little less attractive to players who would otherwise have to risk their computer's integrity and credit card security. Players have sharp opinions one way or the other on player-bought gold, so I'm going to do my best to hit the right points to discuss my opinion on the whole premise. I mean, it's right there in the FAQ. This pet has the added incentive of being a safe and secure way to potentially, maybe, make some gold off your purchase.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Patch 4.3 will bring with it the ability to shatter Maelstrom Crystals into Heavenly Shards. This is unsurprising, as we have been able to shatter or transform the epic enchanting mats from other expansions. At this time, it looks like it will produce two Heavenly Shards per Maelstrom Crystal, and since it's not disenchanting, it's unlikely to be affected by the guild perk. This is going to be an opportunity for people to make some money, as well as provide a much needed sink for these Maelstrom Crystals, which have been piling up of late.

The market for Heavenly Shards is a little odd. In case you've forgotten, you can make one from 16 Elementium Ore and 8 Obsidium Ore. Despite this being "common" knowledge, the price for these enchanting mats has a consistently high profit margin. Maybe it's because of how long and annoying it is to turn ore into shards, or maybe it's because of the large volume taken by the popular enchants this expansion.