I’m reaching out to bring attention to a serious issue affecting the Auction House in Thunder Bluff. There’s been an overwhelming presence of bots running auctions 24/7, flooding the market and making it nearly impossible for regular players to participate without being drowned in underpriced items and automation. This isn’t just an occasional issue, it’s an all-day, every-day problem.
I’ve tried to reach out to the developers over the months but have failed to get any response, and the issue continues to get worse. Botting affects everyone, whether you’re a casual player or someone trying to make a fair profit on the AH. The problem is particularly severe in Thunder Bluff, and it’s incredibly frustrating to see this being overlooked this expansion.
This is a problem we need to address as a community, and if we can raise some awareness together, maybe we can finally get the attention this issue deserves.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you’ll help by lending your voice to this problem.
It’s not botting. It’s largely people using addons and cancel scanning for large portions of the day. Enough of them do it though that it’s basically constant coverage.
Blizz needs to break the addons that do this. It creates a huge disparity and basically locks the average player who doesn’t use addons out of making gold at all. They should have killed this a long time ago. I made a lot of gold doing it at one point but even then I knew it was bad for the game. All that gold raked in means others don’t get to participate.
I understand where you’re coming from, and I agree that the use of cancel scanning addons has a significant impact on the Auction House economy. However, I want to point out that the issue I’m raising isn’t just about addons or cancel scanning. There are actual bots involved with automated accounts running auctions around the clock with zero player input.
The particular bots I’m hoping to point out to the community operate in Thunder bluff on multiple servers. They have automated scripts doing all the work, 24/7. If you are skeptical, I urge you to investigate on your own time and use the in game report tool for botting. They are easy to spot because they are all level 1 tauren moving back and forth from the AH vendor and mailbox and have accents and characters on their names that portray each server (i.e. Èrêðàrðar or sêñjîñjîñ).
While addons like cancel scanning can be problematic, botting is an entirely different level of automation that Blizzard has been slow to address effectively. If the community can’t compete with these kinds of systems, it will keep driving away players who want to engage in a fair marketplace.
Blizz definitely needs to address both issues, but in this case, I’m focused on raising awareness about the botting problem because it’s a more blatant form of exploitation, and it’s hurting the economy in a way that’s hard to ignore.
If that’s the case, even more reason to break the AH addons and kill two birds with one stone, returning the economy to the player base at large rather than “ah goblins”
But Blizz won’t do anything, because, like the mythic crowd, they see these people as elite. Look at him, he made 2mil an hour! He’s so awesome let’s design the game to cater to him!
What is needed…
…Is another addon. I’m not good at coding so I don’t think I could make it, but perhaps someone else could.
It would be a buy order addon. And if you have the addon, you can look through buy orders and click on your mycobloom or gloom chitin to see, “What can I get for this?” and fill the order either by COD in the mail, or by putting it up on the AH.
Now, when you use the AH, the buyer has agreed he’ll buy yours at that price, and not the bot’s who just undercut you by a penny .00001 second after you put it up. So for him the addon shows the order has been filled, he pops his brutosaur and the addon directs him to your listing.
If he buys the bot’s instead, next time someone looks at a buy order he put in, they will see that he buys the bot’s to save a penny and have the option not to fill that order. They will not see his name, just that the person who put in the order does that.
I suspect that there are also bots operating out of the booty bay AH. Once you see the pattern, it’s pretty hard to ignore. You can sit there and see them cycling in and out for hours on end.
The pattern:
All level one horde orcs or hunters
All members of one of three guilds from same server (can’t name and shame here)
All stay in the same spot (Booty Bay AH you don’t need to move to access AH and Mail)
All log in and out in relatively the same order for 11-12 hours a night (5 pm. EST to ~ 4 am EST) seven days a week
I say “I suspect” because this could indeed be a very dedicated auction-house goblin, but 11-12 hours a night and every-night for seven days a week seems a bit suspicious to me…
I’ve reported them and sent emails to hack@blizzard.com, but it takes them weeks to be banned. And then they make new chars and it’s report and wait again :<
I don’t know what Blizzard will do but I wish they’d do something about constant error message when I try to buy a few commonly sold items like Bismuth ores. If I buy 5, it’s no longer available at the price. If I try again to buy 5, it’s no longer available at the price.
If I try again to buy 5, it’s no longer available at the price.
If I try again to buy 5, it’s no longer available at the price.
If I try again to buy 5, it’s no longer available at the price.
If I try again to buy 5, it’s no longer available at the price.
If I try again to buy 5, it’s no longer available at the price.
If I try again to buy 5, it’s no longer available at the price.
If I try again to buy 5, it’s no longer available at the price.
If I try again to buy 5, it’s no longer available at the price.
If I try again to buy 5, it’s no longer available at the price.
If I give up and try to buy 55, I get 55 and I am stuck with 50 extra for a while.
Intentionally listing popular mat at extra low price is making it hard to buy just a few of ores or herbs during peak time. Because the cheap stuff gets snapped up real quickly then a new 1 gets posted. Updating UI in real time would clog internet traffic from the server so that’s not practical.
One possible suggestion is to limit how often one searches the auction house. If they are searching and/or buying several times a minute, throttle them so people who just needed a few can have a chance to get just a few items without fighting a dozen bots listing 1 item at cheap bait price, buying lots of cheap stuff, listing 1 item at cheap bait price, repeat.
Another possible suggestion is to restrict how low mats can be listed at, say no more than 10% cheaper than the currently available item, and there needs to be more than 25 items before another 10% drop can be allowed.
AH became realm-wide. 1) prices dropped to dirt cheap. 2) gatherers and sellers were mad as there was no gold to be made. 3) buyers were happy. 4) so called bots or apps came along. They sell mats for 1 silver and sellers not paying attention will sell their items for nothing. Then they resell at a higher price. 5) buyers couldn’t get the items they wanted as it would say not available at the dirt cheap price. 6) items are still available at ot near price before AH went realm-wide just not dirt cheap.
I think we can all agree that there’s a problem with botting and it definitely needs to be addressed. It’s great to hear these ideas and suggestions, but my fear is that there’s little incentive for Blizzard to prioritize this issue, especially late in a season. Without a real push from the community and consistent action, botting will continue to undermine the game’s economy and player experience. It’s time for Blizzard to make this more of a priority, not just a background issue.
Technically, so would posting repeated comments or comments that are off topic or spam. Doesn’t seem to stop people, though.
Blizz can say they ‘take action’ against stuff but like other games, really it doesn’t make a very observable difference.
I don’t think having people sign for them to look into this will do anything, it’s been observable they don’t really take feedback (Or even bug reports) from the forums.
