Cross Realm Auction Houses For WoW?
While reading through the recent WoW Developers Ask Me Anything (WoW AMA) on Reddit, I stumbled upon the mention of the possible merging of WoW auction houses across realms in the future. Tom Chilton, Game Director for World of Warcraft, posted (source):
Back in February, when I read Fox's notion of making the World of Warcraft auction house global for all servers, I thought he was off his nutter. I still disagree with every bit of his reasoning regarding merging the WoW auction houses. While we may never see a completely global auction house, the possibility of merged auction houses across multiple servers is now a legitimate possibility from the words of the game's director.
I've never been a chicken-little who thinks the sky is falling, but I just gotta say this:
Cross Realm Auction Houses Are Bad For Sellers
Why make auction houses merge across multiple realms? To "help out" those players stuck on low and medium pop servers who have less items to shop from on their auction house. Ugh! If you are on a lower pop server, then you can create your own market and control that markets prices much easier than on a higher pop server with more competition. Obviously, that statement is from the mind of a WoW gold making goblin. Overall though, the buyers would be the ones to benefit most from a cross realm auction house. And that leaves the gold making goblins the ones who will be hit the hardest by merging auction houses.
Merging multiple servers (possibly just limiting the merger to within your current Battlegroup) will prove to be nothing more than a nightmare for nearly anyone involved in making gold in WoW. Sure you can candy coat the idea of having more buyers for your goods and a bigger pool of resources to purchase from, but with more servers merged into a single auction house, you exponentially explode your amount of competition! And with more competition comes even more lowly Kobolds.
It's not as simple as comparing the benefits of a large population server to those of a low pop server. Of course things sell faster on a larger population server, but you also have more competition in your markets. Now when you merge multiple pre-established servers with pre-established WoW gold makers in multiple markets into a single cross realm auction house, things are bound to get ugly. Crazy dumb Kobolds are invading many markets already on individual servers, so when we merge more servers together, they will take over even more and more markets and drive the prices even lower.
Many of you have abandoned the Glyph market already because of the mindless undercutting bloodbaths that are oh so common in the Glyph market. Now merge 10 servers into one and you've got that same type of behavior in every market. Even your precious niche markets that you may be the only seller in are going to be invaded by multiple goblins from multiple servers that also have that same niche market or rare pattern. Every rare or obsolete pattern that you use to make gold off of due to minimal competition on your server is no longer going to belong to you alone or a handful of competitors. Do we really want every market to turn into the Glyph market? I sure don't.
Merger servers into a cross realm auction house will only cause us to have to work harder for even less profits, if we can still profit at all. You think undercutting is bad now? Try battling it with 10 times as many players in all of your markets. Please Blizzard, make these thoughts go away. Say it isn't so!
What Do You Think Of The Cross Realm Auction House Idea For WoW?
Check out some of my Squidoo lenses: Alliance Vs Horde - Come Vote! | Diablo 3 Gifts For Gamers | Getting Started Podcasting 101 | Play Money - Must Read For Auctioneers | Auction House Junkies | Flipping WoW CEs For Profit
Recommended Guides: Secret Gold Guide | Journal of Marcus Ty | WoW Secrets
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| Cross Realm Auction Houses Coming To A WoW Server Near You? |
While reading through the recent WoW Developers Ask Me Anything (WoW AMA) on Reddit, I stumbled upon the mention of the possible merging of WoW auction houses across realms in the future. Tom Chilton, Game Director for World of Warcraft, posted (source):
"...I can imagine a future where we might decide to make auction houses cross-server. It's not something to jump into lightly, but there may be ways to design a cross-realm auction house that ensures a viable economy without getting 'too big'."
Back in February, when I read Fox's notion of making the World of Warcraft auction house global for all servers, I thought he was off his nutter. I still disagree with every bit of his reasoning regarding merging the WoW auction houses. While we may never see a completely global auction house, the possibility of merged auction houses across multiple servers is now a legitimate possibility from the words of the game's director.
I've never been a chicken-little who thinks the sky is falling, but I just gotta say this:
THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!
DON'T DO IT BLIZZARD!
Cross Realm Auction Houses Are Bad For Sellers
Why make auction houses merge across multiple realms? To "help out" those players stuck on low and medium pop servers who have less items to shop from on their auction house. Ugh! If you are on a lower pop server, then you can create your own market and control that markets prices much easier than on a higher pop server with more competition. Obviously, that statement is from the mind of a WoW gold making goblin. Overall though, the buyers would be the ones to benefit most from a cross realm auction house. And that leaves the gold making goblins the ones who will be hit the hardest by merging auction houses.
Merging multiple servers (possibly just limiting the merger to within your current Battlegroup) will prove to be nothing more than a nightmare for nearly anyone involved in making gold in WoW. Sure you can candy coat the idea of having more buyers for your goods and a bigger pool of resources to purchase from, but with more servers merged into a single auction house, you exponentially explode your amount of competition! And with more competition comes even more lowly Kobolds.
It's not as simple as comparing the benefits of a large population server to those of a low pop server. Of course things sell faster on a larger population server, but you also have more competition in your markets. Now when you merge multiple pre-established servers with pre-established WoW gold makers in multiple markets into a single cross realm auction house, things are bound to get ugly. Crazy dumb Kobolds are invading many markets already on individual servers, so when we merge more servers together, they will take over even more and more markets and drive the prices even lower.
Many of you have abandoned the Glyph market already because of the mindless undercutting bloodbaths that are oh so common in the Glyph market. Now merge 10 servers into one and you've got that same type of behavior in every market. Even your precious niche markets that you may be the only seller in are going to be invaded by multiple goblins from multiple servers that also have that same niche market or rare pattern. Every rare or obsolete pattern that you use to make gold off of due to minimal competition on your server is no longer going to belong to you alone or a handful of competitors. Do we really want every market to turn into the Glyph market? I sure don't.
Merger servers into a cross realm auction house will only cause us to have to work harder for even less profits, if we can still profit at all. You think undercutting is bad now? Try battling it with 10 times as many players in all of your markets. Please Blizzard, make these thoughts go away. Say it isn't so!
What Do You Think Of The Cross Realm Auction House Idea For WoW?
Check out some of my Squidoo lenses: Alliance Vs Horde - Come Vote! | Diablo 3 Gifts For Gamers | Getting Started Podcasting 101 | Play Money - Must Read For Auctioneers | Auction House Junkies | Flipping WoW CEs For Profit
Recommended Guides: Secret Gold Guide | Journal of Marcus Ty | WoW Secrets
The day they do multi-realm auction houses is the day I quit gold making, it will destroy the auction house
ReplyDeleteI'm sure they wouldn't implement it without considering all angles and consequences first. And I'm sure they would do a fine job when all was said and done. It sure would make it easier to find those things I'd like to spend all my hard earned gold on, like the rare TCG mounts that seem to only show up on my server once per year, and not have to deal with trying to make gold on multiple servers, or spending real money to transfer to a realm that has the item I want.
ReplyDeleteIf they did this I pretty much think I'd be done with the AH which would mean a lot of grinding out mats to make the things I want. Hmm guess I'd have to start raiding or something =o)
ReplyDeleteIts a horrible idea.
ReplyDeleteD3's AH is global and it sucks. It takes forever to search for stuff, nothing sells and to keep load on the AH manageable they have to cap you at 10 active auctions at any one time. You can't even cancel an auction once you post it.
Its horrible.
If they bring it to WoW, it will make any and all interactions with the auction house extremely unpleasant.
DO.NOT.WANT.
In a general speaking way, this would be a colossal nightmare. I recently created some toons on a high pop server and just running an AH scan can take up to 5 minutes (real time which feels like forever). Now as well all know, this idea probably comes from the complainers of low pop areas as well as folks who just can't run a business. The suggestion that I have for a solution to low population servers is to offer those realms a free transfer to a different server and then collapse that server. Could even make it mandatory if you wanted to (choose your server by xx date or you'll be defaulted to Y server- but said in a nicer way).
ReplyDeleteCharlie, if that's all you're interested in, then Blizz already has a solution for you: The Black Market Auction House.
ReplyDeleteYou'll be able to access it in MoP, and it will contain rare, hard-to-get, and no-longer-attainable items. All sold by Blizz, all random, and all priced through the nose.
The only way this would work is if they added buy orders to the AH. The global AH in gw2 actually works really well and there is so much opportunity to make a profit flipping because of buy orders. Now without buy orders there is no doubt merged AHs would be terrible in WoW and would cause gold making to be incredibly difficult if you aren't able to park a toon at the AH all day to cancel/relist.
ReplyDeleteI think, if they made this like the neutral AH and had a seperate AH, maybe even merge it with the neutral one it might be easier to make gold off of.
ReplyDeleteThis is a retarded article.
ReplyDeleteMerging a few low pop realms to meet even HALF the population of a large realm will make the economy flourish, instead of having herbs and potions and glyphs for ridiculous prices.
I am so sick of reposting my auctions because there are NO BUYERS.
Instead of saying my article is "retarded", how about you submit a thought out explanation of why you don't agree and submit it for the next month's blogging carnival, which asks your opinions on the Cross Realm Auction House.
DeleteWhat you fail to miss is that they won't be just lumping "a few low pop realms" together, every server will be merged with other servers. That means there will be even more kobolds crashing your prices on every server as well as a vast number more goblins playing in each and every auction house market.
I'd love to hear an educated explanation as to why you disagree, instead of just making poorly thought out name calling statements.
PS: High Priced Glyphs? I wish...
I wasn't even aware that they were thinking of implementing cross-realm auctions. This, as you mentioned in your article, would absolutely kill sellers. Any benefit would be far outweighed by the havoc wreaked by this astoundingly uninformed decision. Professions would be rendered practically worthless.
ReplyDeleteQQ...
ReplyDeleteCry me a river.
In case you haven't noticed, WoW, at present, is deeply in hyperinflation. The reason for which is a lack of competition within the market. Nearly all servers are run by a few players who spend all their time monopolising the AH.
THAT IS BAD... The best thing, especially for those of you (I'm assuming all that agree with this article) who are filthy rich by current inflated standards, would be for the merger to take effect. More competition will sort out the inflation, and prices will plummet. As the prices plummet, you still have all your original gold, but everything is cheaper. Relatively speaking, you can still sell your goods for a cheaper price, but as inflation has subsided, you're still earning just as much as you were before.
This is fairly basic economics... Numbers are meaningless, economies are relative, and it's down to percentages, NOT static integers.
Not to mention the fact that AH junkies are few and far between, and that there are A LOT, LOT more regular players; paying customers I might add, that would back this 110%.
Blizzard will do whatever makes them retain subscribers. That's business economics, and hold no misconceptions, WoW is a business, not a charitable service.
I'd expect to see this implemented in the next 6 months.
WoW needs Cross-Realm auctions for some items, at least items you can use. You could get purples and legendary items out of the picture, but the rest should be cross-sellable. At least food, glyphs, pots and such common stuff.
ReplyDeleteI've been asking for a cross-realm auction for some time. I have a few low level chars stuck on an empty server (not low populated, EMPTY). The AH has got 1917 items today.
That's about 2% of my main server.
1 - Needless to say.. let's see.. glyphs ? There are 885 (amazing, nearly half of the AH items are glyphs, and the chepeast is 79gold. Now.. how do you manage that with low level chars ? You don't. You simply can't use glyphs.
2 - Ah but you say, you can ask a guildie to do it for you.
Helllooo ? On empty servers, there are no guilds. Wrong, there's one, and the rest is simply a repository of ppl that log once in a while, don't even say hello, and certainly will not help you with glyphs, most don't even know what that is.
3 - Ah, you can say "WTB in trade". Yes ? And... nothing happens, because no one is in town. On my server, it's 1PM and there are...13 ONLINE. Yes, 13. Only 2 persons are in town, I'm one of them, checking AH.
Enough said about empty servers and Auction Houses...
So are there follow up articles out now?
ReplyDeleteDid they merge the auction houses yet?
Have been on a WoW break for 14months ;)
They havent merged them just yet, but virtual realms are on the way in the next WoW Patch 5.4.
ReplyDeleteThe follow up articles about this can be found here:
Cross Realm AH Blogging Carnival