Auction house automation discussion

[Shadowmak]

I'd like to use the opportunity to react to Kestrel's message in the Possible AH Bots Ruining AH thread (https://octowow.st/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2020&start=60).

Since more information has not been posted yet, I may not understand what guardrails would be in place. Kestrel's comment leaves some room for interpretation, so in the meantime till the dev team posts more info it would be good to understand the community's views on this topic.

The whole idea of the Auction House should be sharing resources between players in a convenient way, while also making some money. I find it difficult to understand why AH automation would be allowed, and I would like to better understand the reasoning behind it. In my opinion, this provides a benefit only to a handful of players who will be running the market. It can lead to instant undercutting, market control, and normal players being discouraged from selling their items. This can turn players into passive AH users with a little ability to participate in the market.

I personally love the thrill of selling some items on the AH, but I am always disappointed when I am on a server where a few individuals control prices and effectively set the rules. This is not healthy for the market nor for the community.

I'd love OctoWoW to keep being a server with a good community, and I don't believe competing over who can write the smarter AH script, while staying on the edge of the rules, will benefit the server at all.

Please, let the market live on its own without whales destroying it for everyone. Please protect it; do not allow it to be destroyed.

[Darien]

It seems to me like the key problem is multiboxing, honestly. As long as one can keep an "auction mule" open in another window to check scripts while playing the game on a "main" account, this is viable. Remove that, and you greatly reduce the ability of people to play with the market in this way.

[Ollie]

How is this even a question tho

Even if everyone had that tool at hand with an addon through the launcher the items would just get automatically undercut to 1c?

Its obvious this shouldent be allowed for the sake of balance and economy. There was a huge jump in flask prices last weekend and this is a prime example of why you dont want this kind of stuff running your AH.

I actually was shocked this morning when logging into the game when i saw a GM poll, i thought wow cool it will be about bots running the AH right? Wrong it was a stupid lawyer question on how to adresse RMTers.

With everything going on right now this is just another nail in the coffin

[Revisions]

How is this even a question tho

Even if everyone had that tool at hand with an addon through the launcher the items would just get automatically undercut to 1c?

Its obvious this shouldent be allowed for the sake of balance and economy. There was a huge jump in flask prices last weekend and this is a prime example of why you dont want this kind of stuff running your AH.

I actually was shocked this morning when logging into the game when i saw a GM poll, i thought wow cool it will be about bots running the AH right? Wrong it was a stupid lawyer question on how to adresse RMTers.

With everything going on right now this is just another nail in the coffin

Most of the Auction house addons undercut by 1c and thats almost all versions of WOW not just classic, also Flasks going up in price for the weekend just makes since no? Thats when the most amount of people are raiding so why wouldnt you try and get a more premium price when you know people actually need flasks and consumes? Only part I dont think is good is having it be fully automated, but again most of the addons can tell you if youve been undercut and youll just have to spend less then a minute to cancel the auction, check mail, relist. Turtle allowed multiboxing as well, only 2 accounts unless you were doing summons, it wont ever go away but its also free to make a new account so why not also use 2 accounts even if its just to mail something to yourself to save time or have extra bag space?

[Ridil]

How is this even a question tho

Even if everyone had that tool at hand with an addon through the launcher the items would just get automatically undercut to 1c?

Its obvious this shouldent be allowed for the sake of balance and economy. There was a huge jump in flask prices last weekend and this is a prime example of why you dont want this kind of stuff running your AH.

I actually was shocked this morning when logging into the game when i saw a GM poll, i thought wow cool it will be about bots running the AH right? Wrong it was a stupid lawyer question on how to adresse RMTers.

With everything going on right now this is just another nail in the coffin

Most of the Auction house addons undercut by 1c and thats almost all versions of WOW not just classic, also Flasks going up in price for the weekend just makes since no? Thats when the most amount of people are raiding so why wouldnt you try and get a more premium price when you know people actually need flasks and consumes? Only part I dont think is good is having it be fully automated, but again most of the addons can tell you if youve been undercut and youll just have to spend less then a minute to cancel the auction, check mail, relist. Turtle allowed multiboxing as well, only 2 accounts unless you were doing summons, it wont ever go away but its also free to make a new account so why not also use 2 accounts even if its just to mail something to yourself to save time or have extra bag space?

My brother in Uther, flasks going up in price for the weekend is normal, but not DOUBLE the amount. Flasks were 17g-21g two weeks back and that was alright as a raider, but this week they catapulted to about 40g or even more in some cases (Titans on 50g). This price is NOT okay and the server economy bleeds for it.
Full automation is the main problem, since that's what Bogenjochen did, and even if addons tell you what to do, this bot somehow works the entire auction house.
Now let's take a look why botting or undercutting addons are a problem with an easy example:
Player A found something rare. Yay for player A. A wants to sell this item, but nobody buys it. A wants to be smart and goes kind of lower with the price, but something that is fathomable. A gets undercut suddenly, not by one player, but by all auctions and kind of dictated the price. Suddenly, the prices for the item dropped and the great loot they had is worth even less for A. A wants to be smart again and goes even lower, under value. The item gets bought instantly. Well, now the low price is gone and suddenly the "addons" notice: "Hey, that price is too low. Let's jack it up a bit." You'd think the price goes back to normal, but no! It has to be more expensive, since there is more stock! So over time things get ridiculously expensive and you have to sell everything for way less money. The AH gets unusable. GG, but yeah, let the addons live, sure.

[Revisions]

How is this even a question tho

Even if everyone had that tool at hand with an addon through the launcher the items would just get automatically undercut to 1c?

Its obvious this shouldent be allowed for the sake of balance and economy. There was a huge jump in flask prices last weekend and this is a prime example of why you dont want this kind of stuff running your AH.

I actually was shocked this morning when logging into the game when i saw a GM poll, i thought wow cool it will be about bots running the AH right? Wrong it was a stupid lawyer question on how to adresse RMTers.

With everything going on right now this is just another nail in the coffin

Most of the Auction house addons undercut by 1c and thats almost all versions of WOW not just classic, also Flasks going up in price for the weekend just makes since no? Thats when the most amount of people are raiding so why wouldnt you try and get a more premium price when you know people actually need flasks and consumes? Only part I dont think is good is having it be fully automated, but again most of the addons can tell you if youve been undercut and youll just have to spend less then a minute to cancel the auction, check mail, relist. Turtle allowed multiboxing as well, only 2 accounts unless you were doing summons, it wont ever go away but its also free to make a new account so why not also use 2 accounts even if its just to mail something to yourself to save time or have extra bag space?

My brother in Uther, flasks going up in price for the weekend is normal, but not DOUBLE the amount. Flasks were 17g-21g two weeks back and that was alright as a raider, but this week they catapulted to about 40g or even more in some cases (Titans on 50g). This price is NOT okay and the server economy bleeds for it.
Full automation is the main problem, since that's what Bogenjochen did, and even if addons tell you what to do, this bot somehow works the entire auction house.
Now let's take a look why botting or undercutting addons are a problem with an easy example:
Player A found something rare. Yay for player A. A wants to sell this item, but nobody buys it. A wants to be smart and goes kind of lower with the price, but something that is fathomable. A gets undercut suddenly, not by one player, but by all auctions and kind of dictated the price. Suddenly, the prices for the item dropped and the great loot they had is worth even less for A. A wants to be smart again and goes even lower, under value. The item gets bought instantly. Well, now the low price is gone and suddenly the "addons" notice: "Hey, that price is too low. Let's jack it up a bit." You'd think the price goes back to normal, but no! It has to be more expensive, since there is more stock! So over time things get ridiculously expensive and you have to sell everything for way less money. The AH gets unusable. GG, but yeah, let the addons live, sure.

Ill refer you to this https://octowow.st/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2196 . Flasks are not going up to 50g.... Also why not just buy the mats and find an Alchemist to make them for you for a tip, Pretty sure you could get it cheaper this way if you really wanted to get flasks for raids. I bought flasks yesterday and paided 21g, no one is undercutting by large margins because everyone is losing money then, if your player A is listing it under the average then thats on them, sometimes items take a bit to sell. If items get too expensive no one will buy them, rmt is heavily monitored on this server so alot of people are not rolling in thousands of gold so over priced consumes wont sell, Even on Twow Ambershire Flasks were not that expensive and now that lasher are nerfed and dont drop as much it might be the only reason consumes are actually even profitable at all.

Also this guys addon only works on Alchemy items not the whole auction house, so you saying:

"A gets undercut suddenly, not by one player, but by all auctions and kind of dictated the price" doesnt make any sense at all.
"A wants to sell this item, but nobody buys it" Then no one wants that item just vendor it and move on.

"A wants to be smart again and goes even lower, under value. The item gets bought instantly" This just doesnt happen, if youve listed an item multiple times and no one buys it for lets say 24+ hours then that items is useless, no one will buy it instantly, again just vendor it and move on.

Find an item thats in high demand that moves alot in the market and sell it, Consumes in general fit that over the 20+ years wow has been alive because most raid require you to have them. Normal wow classic flasks were hundreds of gold because of RMT and GDKP, those are both not allowed here so flasks on Twow and Here are both priced normally, again no one is buying 50g flasks.

[Ridil]

Most of the Auction house addons undercut by 1c and thats almost all versions of WOW not just classic, also Flasks going up in price for the weekend just makes since no? Thats when the most amount of people are raiding so why wouldnt you try and get a more premium price when you know people actually need flasks and consumes? Only part I dont think is good is having it be fully automated, but again most of the addons can tell you if youve been undercut and youll just have to spend less then a minute to cancel the auction, check mail, relist. Turtle allowed multiboxing as well, only 2 accounts unless you were doing summons, it wont ever go away but its also free to make a new account so why not also use 2 accounts even if its just to mail something to yourself to save time or have extra bag space?

My brother in Uther, flasks going up in price for the weekend is normal, but not DOUBLE the amount. Flasks were 17g-21g two weeks back and that was alright as a raider, but this week they catapulted to about 40g or even more in some cases (Titans on 50g). This price is NOT okay and the server economy bleeds for it.
Full automation is the main problem, since that's what Bogenjochen did, and even if addons tell you what to do, this bot somehow works the entire auction house.
Now let's take a look why botting or undercutting addons are a problem with an easy example:
Player A found something rare. Yay for player A. A wants to sell this item, but nobody buys it. A wants to be smart and goes kind of lower with the price, but something that is fathomable. A gets undercut suddenly, not by one player, but by all auctions and kind of dictated the price. Suddenly, the prices for the item dropped and the great loot they had is worth even less for A. A wants to be smart again and goes even lower, under value. The item gets bought instantly. Well, now the low price is gone and suddenly the "addons" notice: "Hey, that price is too low. Let's jack it up a bit." You'd think the price goes back to normal, but no! It has to be more expensive, since there is more stock! So over time things get ridiculously expensive and you have to sell everything for way less money. The AH gets unusable. GG, but yeah, let the addons live, sure.

Ill refer you to this https://octowow.st/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2196 . Flasks are not going up to 50g.... Also why not just buy the mats and find an Alchemist to make them for you for a tip, Pretty sure you could get it cheaper this way if you really wanted to get flasks for raids. I bought flasks yesterday and paided 21g, no one is undercutting by large margins because everyone is losing money then, if your player A is listing it under the average then thats on them, sometimes items take a bit to sell. If items get too expensive no one will buy them, rmt is heavily monitored on this server so alot of people are not rolling in thousands of gold so over priced consumes wont sell, Even on Twow Ambershire Flasks were not that expensive and now that lasher are nerfed and dont drop as much it might be the only reason consumes are actually even profitable at all.

Also this guys addon only works on Alchemy items not the whole auction house, so you saying:

"A gets undercut suddenly, not by one player, but by all auctions and kind of dictated the price" doesnt make any sense at all.
"A wants to sell this item, but nobody buys it" Then no one wants that item just vendor it and move on.

"A wants to be smart again and goes even lower, under value. The item gets bought instantly" This just doesnt happen, if youve listed an item multiple times and no one buys it for lets say 24+ hours then that items is useless, no one will buy it instantly.

They were at that price suddenly, during raiding hours, so of course I could always get an alchemist and do this, but not everyone can. It will just make getting flasks more annoying.
And consumables or very warranted items don't take too long on the server to sell, since progression is fast. The problem also isn't with time, it's with being undercut, but you didn't seem to be able to gather that information. Sorry on my part for not being clear enough.
RMT isn't an issue I brought up, that's a <Strawman Argument> (shoutouts), so I'm not saying there is real money involved, my entire post did not.
Lasher nerfs are seen as a problem, but I think the lasher buff in the first place was way more stupid and flasks should've just needed less consumes or herb gathering should give more. Gathering is barely worth anything if you try to compete rn, but that's an issue of it's own, again.

It does work on alchemy for now, but it can be easily exploited by removing the alchemy filter. If you do that, you suddenly scan the entire auction house, wow. You put in a watchlist and gg. Every chatbot could tell you the same and it is problematic, because it is just a push of the button instead of actually gathering and looking at information yourself.

"Doesn't make any sense at all", since you do not understand the example I'll explain it again to ya: It is to show how problematic these kinds of addons get over time. This is what we're going towards.

"Then no one wants that item just vendor it and move on", A's item isn't unwanted, it is just being undercut too fast.

"That item is useless", you're arguing against yourself here. You said some items need time to be sold, right? In the same post even. Pick a position in that regard, please, so I can discuss it better with you. The problem, again, isn't that the item is useless, but the prices are out of control. Level 16 blue weapons can't be bought by level 16 players, who saved up a bit of gold for that, since it will (we're still in the future where these addons run rampant) be too expensive.

Hope I made myself clearer this time!

[Uggerbugger]

So the automatic undercutting by auction bots on flasks are now increasing the prices up to over 50g as well as selling under the prices of others by one cent and will soon reach 1c. Got it.

[Ocdonotsteal]

Also keep in mind that the DDoSing and influx of new users has also shifted the price of mats in general.

Also friendly reminder to not fall for bait, and that ironic shitposting is still shitposting.

[Icantkite]

Most of the Auction house addons undercut by 1c and thats almost all versions of WOW not just classic, also Flasks going up in price for the weekend just makes since no? Thats when the most amount of people are raiding so why wouldnt you try and get a more premium price when you know people actually need flasks and consumes? Only part I dont think is good is having it be fully automated, but again most of the addons can tell you if youve been undercut and youll just have to spend less then a minute to cancel the auction, check mail, relist. Turtle allowed multiboxing as well, only 2 accounts unless you were doing summons, it wont ever go away but its also free to make a new account so why not also use 2 accounts even if its just to mail something to yourself to save time or have extra bag space?

My brother in Uther, flasks going up in price for the weekend is normal, but not DOUBLE the amount. Flasks were 17g-21g two weeks back and that was alright as a raider, but this week they catapulted to about 40g or even more in some cases (Titans on 50g). This price is NOT okay and the server economy bleeds for it.
Full automation is the main problem, since that's what Bogenjochen did, and even if addons tell you what to do, this bot somehow works the entire auction house.
Now let's take a look why botting or undercutting addons are a problem with an easy example:
Player A found something rare. Yay for player A. A wants to sell this item, but nobody buys it. A wants to be smart and goes kind of lower with the price, but something that is fathomable. A gets undercut suddenly, not by one player, but by all auctions and kind of dictated the price. Suddenly, the prices for the item dropped and the great loot they had is worth even less for A. A wants to be smart again and goes even lower, under value. The item gets bought instantly. Well, now the low price is gone and suddenly the "addons" notice: "Hey, that price is too low. Let's jack it up a bit." You'd think the price goes back to normal, but no! It has to be more expensive, since there is more stock! So over time things get ridiculously expensive and you have to sell everything for way less money. The AH gets unusable. GG, but yeah, let the addons live, sure.

Ill refer you to this https://octowow.st/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2196 . Flasks are not going up to 50g.... Also why not just buy the mats and find an Alchemist to make them for you for a tip, Pretty sure you could get it cheaper this way if you really wanted to get flasks for raids. I bought flasks yesterday and paided 21g, no one is undercutting by large margins because everyone is losing money then, if your player A is listing it under the average then thats on them, sometimes items take a bit to sell. If items get too expensive no one will buy them, rmt is heavily monitored on this server so alot of people are not rolling in thousands of gold so over priced consumes wont sell, Even on Twow Ambershire Flasks were not that expensive and now that lasher are nerfed and dont drop as much it might be the only reason consumes are actually even profitable at all.

Also this guys addon only works on Alchemy items not the whole auction house, so you saying:

"A gets undercut suddenly, not by one player, but by all auctions and kind of dictated the price" doesnt make any sense at all.
"A wants to sell this item, but nobody buys it" Then no one wants that item just vendor it and move on.

"A wants to be smart again and goes even lower, under value. The item gets bought instantly" This just doesnt happen, if youve listed an item multiple times and no one buys it for lets say 24+ hours then that items is useless, no one will buy it instantly, again just vendor it and move on.

Find an item thats in high demand that moves alot in the market and sell it, Consumes in general fit that over the 20+ years wow has been alive because most raid require you to have them. Normal wow classic flasks were hundreds of gold because of RMT and GDKP, those are both not allowed here so flasks on Twow and Here are both priced normally, again no one is buying 50g flasks.

this happens on every sunday.. mithipia and bogenjochen are behind it for sure.