I think the ability to create public work orders without mats is a step on the wrong direction. Public crafting orders are currently a stress-free way to slowly level a profession (particularly now that the daily limit was implemented and you can find them more often.)
Now, it seems like I will have to hold public orders hostage while I go hunt down mats and price them out since the price of mats changes every day. I don’t always have an excess of mats laying around and I don’t use crafting/auction add-ons because they bog down the game, look ugly, cause several LUA errors, and are not intuitive, so if this were to be implemented, I think there should be an in-game interface to help see if crafting the item will be profitable.
Additionally, you can’t view the “crafting orders” pane while at the auction house, so the ability to open the two windows together in the next patch will be pointless in this regard unless you make note of all the orders that you are holding hostage and write down what mats they provided. There are already people providing mats with the lowest possible commission to create an item at the altar of decay. This is putting too much trust in the customer to do something sensible and might require the crafter to use add-ons if they want to even participate.
What’s even worse is the wowhead example image shows a person providing a 50g commission stating they hope that it covers the extra mats, which is missing 8 awakened decay. On my realm, they are currently 130g each, or 120g to put together yourself. I am hoping that this will not cause an influx of unprofitable orders to flood the system.
Maybe I’m missing something about how this is good. If there is, I am all ears. Otherwise, I hope I can level all my professions before this change so I can just ignore the system. If they want to make this system more accessible to the consumers, then allow them to purchase a bundle on the AH of all the mats required, or find a way to search for the mats needed for an item with all the varying qualities, don’t but the burden on the crafter. Or let them purchase the items directly from the ordering system somehow. This current change just feels like lazy design.
Some professions will be slightly easier to do (like tailoring or rings), but some require so many costly mats it will require more calculation. I feel like customers who are too confused to be able to use this system (if that is the reason for this change) will probably not provide adequate compensation.
I’m not a serious goblin by any means. I just like to have fun with professions and make things for my alts, occasionally making a piece here or there for friends or do public orders when I can find them. Given that this work order system is the only way to level some professions without a massive cost to yourself, I feel like this is an even worse change for casuals like me. I’m assuming it probably won’t seriously affect those with a large customer base for personal orders.
That is another issue for another thread, but I can easily see how this issue will translate into the announced public order change.