Posts with tag embargo

Every week, Gold Capped brings you tips on how to make money on the auction house. This article from inscription specialist Steve Zamboni has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com.

Almost all auction house tactics revolve around the undercut. It may be a single copper, a few silver or a few gold, or a freefall drop down to the price of materials. Regardless of the amount or the frequency, most undercuts share a common misconception: that you're controlling the market with your undercuts. You're not. Your competitor has the control. By undercutting, you've just let your competitor decide your price. You've let your competitor set a cap on your profits -- and more, you've agreed to accept even less with your undercut.

The inscription market sees more than its fair share of this, sometimes on a large scale. The low deposits encourage large number of postings, followed by even larger numbers of cancellations and repostings. Prices fall as each new poster accepts and trumps the previous poster's prices, until the market falls to the cost of materials and the walls go up. The final wall signals a complete loss of market control.

Once it's up, it no longer matters who built the wall. If it's your wall, you can't raise prices until the competition perched above you goes away. If it's not your wall, you can't raise prices on your auctions until someone breaks the wall. Stalemate, and out come the piña coladas.

Until I saw this article, I hadn't realized that any country with which the US had a trade embargo was prohibited from adventuring throughout Azeroth according to World of Warcraft's terms of service.  Even formerly embargoed countries, such as Iraq and Iran, remain specifically banned from playing WoW.  This doesn't mean that there are no players in embargoed countries - only that they may be permanently banned whenever Blizzard takes the time to enforce these rules.  It's an interesting look at the barricades between some players and the virtual world most of us take for granted.