Had my first auction snipe. Accidentally posted a BOE epic for silver instead of gold and it sold a second after it listed . I already know that Blizzard won’t do anything about it but I was kind of fascinated by the attitude a lot of players take regarding exploiting the mistakes of others - in that most seem to hold the opinion that it’s morally acceptable to do so.
In this case, I cancelled the auction immediately. I actually got an auction cancellation notice. Then right after it said the item had sold. The guy was obviously botting. I found a lot of posts describing this exact scenario on the forums.
Most responses were along the lines of: “Well you mistyped and botting is legal so no one did anything wrong”.
This attitude indicates a startling lack of empathy from a player base that supposedly cared so much about connecting with other players that they’re counting polygons in the 15 year old version of the game.
18 Likes
I have done the same thing on other mmos so your not alone. BOE purple does hurt though, that sucks. Sorry bud.
3 Likes
It’s disgusting. I put up the BiS rogue boots for twinks back in TBC for 2 gold (I didn’t know better and thought 2 gold was a ton) and they sold instantly. They went for well over 100. That would’ve done a lot for level 25 me.
If I see something like that I buy it out then send it back in the mail with a message or whisper the person saying it’s worth a hell of a lot more. Doesn’t happen much, but when I see I try to help.
I might be an outright capitalist, but I like people to get their money’s worth out of their objects.
19 Likes
I see no problem with grabbing someone’s auction for cheap. But What I want to know is how Blizz doesn’t consider auction botting to be a problem.
33 Likes
Not necessarily a bot, there are numerous people on every server running sniper on TSM or realtime search on Auctioneer and they may simply be clicking a button/hitting a macro the second it pops up. I’ve run snipers before and rarely won something expensive for nothing. It’s also risky if you’re just using some generic rule based on scanned data for everything rather than creating your own custom groups (or snatch list in the case of auctioneer).
People do combine those tools with third party bots/scripts too sometimes. One time I was bidding on something and it was being re-bid on within milliseconds of me clicking the bid button. I probably clicked on it like 10 times just to watch it to see if it was just a fluke, but it seemed like someone had a bot and really wanted to win that auction.
Also, botting or using third party software is obviously not considered OK so I’m not sure where you’re getting that idea or who these people are that supposedly think that. Using in-game addons like TSM and Auctioneer is fine. Combining them with third party software to automate the sniping is not. With just the addons you have to manually click a button when it finds something you want to snipe/snatch. They can continue to scan the last page of the AH constantly and alert you when they find a deal that matches your criteria. It can all happen very quickly if you don’t take the time to look at it and see what you’re buying, but it’s still a manual press.
8 Likes
That guy is a great bargain shopper. Better luck next time.
3 Likes
It’d be nice if Blizzard could get rid of bots, but it’s a huge money / time sink as we’ve seen with what happened with honorbuddy.
Auctioneer is not botting
16 Likes
with everything said its a crap situation to be in especially if you realise as u click the button.
it takes an hour for the AH to mail the gold to you if it sells i dont see why they cant make it 30 mins and allow 30 mine before the auction goes live after you enter it, it would allow you to post everything then review it incase you have made a mistake.
it may also help to stabalise the market of certain items if you cant undercut something immediatly and need to wait 30 mins for it to be live, or perhaps have a rarity threshhold for it, or a extra option you can choose for a slightly higher or lower deposit.
for now, and i do this with every auction i post, double check and triple check the price before posting.
1 Like
It’s botting of course but because Blizzard’s API allows it they do nothing about it … selective enforcement of ‘no botting’ rules FTL.
3 Likes
Even without an addon, on a busy server there could be any number of people looking to buy that item and refreshing.
5 Likes
botting is legal? i didn’t know that.
1 Like
I mean, you DID list it for that.
Blizzard shouldn’t be responsible to correct your mistakes. Imagine if they did this for every person who claimed they sold their item for too low after the fact? It’s impossible to enforce that. Slow down next time.
As far as botting, of course that should be punished and taken care of. Not saying this situation was it though.
7 Likes
ill actually hang out at the auction house looking for items that i need and if something is on a ‘short’ timer with 1c and buy out is 100g, ill just keep refreshing the page and when i ‘feel lucky’ i bid to see if i can win that item for 1c, usually someone is doing the same and its a penny bid off.
6 Likes
Sniping might be morally grey but it is NOT botting.
People really need to educate themselves, the way people snipe things is by TSM AH addon which can scan the last page of the AH. It has existed in retail for many years and is not against the rules or botting. If it was, Blizz would have broken it long, long ago.
People throw the term bot around way too easily these days.
12 Likes
Stay on topic or go away. The post is about empathy and whether or not it’s morally acceptable to exploit obvious mistakes.
Not interested in nerds explaining the delicate nuance of how the exploitation is accomplished.
3 Likes
You made the mistake by not checking your price before posting. It’s not obvious to other players, however. There are tons of things someone could think from “oh that person doesn’t know the value of it” to “oh these must not have been selling so it’s cheap” or even “someone just wants to get rid of something quick”. There’s no exploitation, you learned a valuable lesson. Don’t get pissy with people who are commenting on your thread.
11 Likes
It is incredibly morally acceptable to capitalize on peoples mistakes. Thats just nature. Should the snake let the frog go instead of eat him if he makes a mistake? No. Does it suck? Yes. Is it fair? Also yes. It was your mistake, own it and let it go.
7 Likes