Something I realized today about the auction house.
When you simply right-click to sell and list items, and just let the game price it for you (which probably most people do, assuming the game is listing it at a reasonable price), you are probably getting scammed.
I’m sitting at the AH now clicking refresh on various items, for example “Rousing Frost”. Every few seconds, potentially even a bot, is listing a single one at 1 gold (they generally sell for 20g).
They are fishing for people listing bigger stacks and then the system automatically pricing it at the current lowest price, and then they immediately buy those.
I’ve just watched a 200 stack go for 200g. Hundreds of items are being sold at the scam price every minute, innocent players trusting the game to do the right thing…
This is toxic game play and incredibly lazy coding. Blizzard, can you make the system smarter and code in some outlier detection into the pricing?
The people that are getting snagged for posting stuff at low prices are the lazy ones.
They are probably using an addon that lets them post a lot of stuff quick, without paying attention to price.
If they PAID ATTENTION to what they are posting for a given price - this wouldn’t happen.
Also - you could monkeywrench their nefarious plans for AH domination by simply buying that 1 item at 1 gold. Instead of coming to the forums to complain about a non-issue…
This is the third thread in the past few days on the topic. You’ll find there is a pretty sharp divide between people who think something should be done, and those that defend the system as it stands.
You can kind of tell who is benefiting from the fleecing racket.
As I posted before, this could easily be rectified by a short delay, just a few minutes, between when you list something and when it becomes visible and purchasable. So you can edit your listing for errors or if you change your mind, and it will diminish this activity as a whole as the “Post bait, wait a few seconds, remove bait” behavior will be hindered a fair bit as well.
As it stands, you can just try to snatch up the bait postings yourself. it takes some time, but you can build a nice stack of mats for 1g or so a piece, and you’re frustrating one of these con-artists. Amusing to see them start to post stacks of whatever they are trying to fleece off people because you keep snatching up their seed listing too quick.
People trust information that comes directly from Blizzard - like a suggested listing price. It is not at all a player problem.
People did this kind of stuff with the original AH, where they would try to list 1 item for the price of a 20 stack or smth like that and make it blend in in the listings. That was a player problem because the game didn’t suggest you buy it for that price, for example. All the decision making was on the player’s end.
I’m only recently returned to the game, myself, but from a little digging, this is not a new issue by any measure, and probably nothing will be done. The best we could likely hope for is an information campaign by people but you have folks that don’t do anything more than log into WoW and don’t come here, or consume youtuber and other content on WoW.
I think that’s one of the better descriptors of it that I’ve seen. Plenty of people just giving this issue the old shrug n move on, but those also don’t want anything done about it. If it’s a bother to you, but a bother to someone else, let that person voice their concern. They’re also throwing up 15$ a /mo for it (Or tokens). It’s a valid complaint. The “BUT IT’S BEEN GOING ON FOR FOREVER” comments are just appeals to tradition, a wonderful and tired logical fallacy.
I don’t think I have any seriously decent suggestions on curbing the issue. It’s probably harder to fix now than before with the region wide AH’s. But the notion that there can’t be a fix, or that it should continue as it because ‘uhh it’s always been like that bro’ is pretty weak. I’m really glad at the uptick in posts about it. If no one complains, there’s no chance of it ever changing.
Addons use the default Blizzard pricing, but they allow you to put a lot of stuff up quickly, tracking listing prices, etc. Unfortunately for some people (who deserve to get fleeced), they use the addons to list up all their AH loot stuff quick - not paying attention to the listing price.
Point still stands - if YOU aren’t paying attention to the price you are listing at, the fault lies with YOU.
My sympathy cup is on empty when the people that are complaining AREN’T PAYING ATTENTION. Don’t want to get fleeced? PAY ATTENTION. Want that wild undercutting to stop? Buy that 1 item at 1 gold every time you see it. Eventually the lister will get tired of listing it.