Sometimes I think the 'playing the auction house' idea is a strategy to keep players

[Seegtease]

Wait a second about this "Cap". AH has huge caps as well. e.g. an item may be overpriced if you want to claim it at low price for a long time or your listing may be huge and not be able to service it properly due to low population. It's not that the AH doesn't have caps. The economy is the cap.

Smaller economy also means less competition. There are a lot of popular items. Just try a different one if it's a bad day for a particular one.

[xrayEU]

That 5 is quite weak. Very weak. I know people that can farm 10k in an hour or two reliably.

It's not the farming that is the problem if you are out farming, it will work for a day or two but eventually you will flood the market with mats and you will lower the prices and get less profit.
If you instead spend the time flipping items and using auction house as your farming hub you will spend less time and will get more profit per house (GPH).

[Deleted]

Anyway, I'm done here. People are getting upset anyway even if I present arguments and not just "you don't agree with me, I'll talk to a moderator".

I'll keep playing the AH in a limited fashion as I already do (yep, I do, it doesn't matter that I didn't say it) and I might increase it just for fun for a while. But that doesn't mean I don't see its huge risks, its huge waiting times, and sometimes its own caps.

[mea]

Yeah, lots of talking, little action. This is the theory, the results of good farming can give more reliable gold.

Most of the AH games result to huge losses.

Completely false, and ridiculously so. The players who -know- how to play the ah invest in what is reliable by tendency and probability. There's still a small portion of luck involved as long as other players are involved, but to have good auctions consistently end in loss and a bad profit per time spent, would require some epic bad luck.

---------- Post added 2012-01-30 at 12:18 PM ----------

Yeah but what you proved is that you have no arguments, just idle sarcasm.

---------- Post added 2012-01-30 at 10:53 AM ----------


Shhh, don't say that, it's a "sure" way to win.

Reality is, auction house "playing" is time consuming with huge risks.

Yes, if you just started researching items and price patterns, and you're not used to playing the ah, there's a huge risk. That risk will always be there, but it'll become smaller and smaller the better you get at predicting and observing the market. Do you think with several million gold from the ah, from thousands of auctions, all it comes down to is repeated insane luck despite the supposed high risk?

[Indigenously Abled]

Wait a second about this "Cap". AH has huge caps as well. e.g. an item may be overpriced if you want to claim it at low price for a long time or your listing may be huge and not be able to service it properly due to low population. It's not that the AH doesn't have caps. The economy is the cap.

I don't think anyone ever asserted that the AH didn't have a 'cap' of sorts. Yes there are limits to how much you can sell at one time, as well as how much you can sell things for. It's the rules of basic economics, which the WoW auction house isn't immune to. Having a vast supply of commonly in-demand items (buying in bulk at a discounted price for example) is what makes me my gold. 10ish minutes a day often brings in upwards of 100k per week, which is neither far fetched nor uncommon.

---------- Post added 2012-01-30 at 05:22 AM ----------

Anyway, I'm done here. People are getting upset anyway even if I present arguments and not just "you don't agree with me, I'll talk to a moderator".

I'll keep playing the AH in a limited fashion as I already do (yep, I do, it doesn't matter that I didn't say it) and I might increase it just for fun for a while. But that doesn't mean I don't see its huge risks, its huge waiting times, and sometimes its own caps.

Now it just looks like you were bored and decided to start a thread with the intent of garnering responses. From my observation, you seem to be closer to 'upset' than anyone else who has posted semi-constructively here. A farewell post by the OP is very telling.

[Deleted]

You might be. But there is a cap at how good you can be. Maybe you kill mobs in 2 seconds, but you still have to travel to them and loot them. Even if you do this perfectly, a person who really masters the AH will be making more money.

I'd love to see you come to my AH (alliance SSL) and make 50k/day on AH. I'm not convinced there's so much to make even if you had the whole market.

Buying below market and reselling won't help either as there's a lot of posting at unrealistic prices so you'll just end up re-listing a lot. Even stuff that's put up well below the 'auctioneer' market rate can take weeks to sell.

If you play on a busy realm then you have the chance to make a lot more off playing the AH, but the quieter it gets the less gold there is all round.

[davesurfer]

This is unheard of in real life. You can't just go out of the Stock Exchange and kill a few Crocs and get their skins. You must stay at your boring job with no end in sight and hope your job, your only job will give the money, well with some limited exceptions.

People are getting on OP about him not knowing how to play the AH, one may argue he also needs to look at RL. No one is stuck in their boring job. RL is the same to an extent as the AH. Look at what people want and go create it. Don't say you can't, life is full of stories of rags to riches by identifying a need in the market place and providing it.

It is sad when I see people post this, as there is a ton of opportunity out there, you just have to take risks and go for them. You will never be rich waiting for people to give it to you

[Randoomer]

Oh my, where to start...so much to show you don't have a clue what you're talking about. And this comes from a person who went from 30k to over 1million in less than 6 months playing the auction house on a medium pop server.

And how do you know I don't make more without it even if I know how to play it?

Because if you did know how to play it, you'd know that your first post is absolute rubbish.

Most of the AH games result to huge losses.

This also proves that you do not know how to play it.

Reality is, you want to "play" an item type and the window of opportunity is tiny unless you are in a huge realm of 100,000 players on your faction, which is rare to impossible.

Incorrect again, read what I opened with.

However, if you farm those overpriced items you'll make huge amounts compared to the sad auction player who stays there waiting for "deals". And there is not even time investment lost, waiting there doing nothing waiting for listing, is time lost.

Actually, you'll find the people that succesfully play the AH, use that downtime to do other, enjoyable things whether it be in game, or out. But you will be doing your farming. Time = Gold. I can spend 5 minutes buying what it takes you an hour to farm. Tell me who's getting the better use of the time there.

Reality is, auction house "playing" is time consuming with huge risks.

Not half as time consuming as farming those same things, as pointed out above.

Clever farming of overpriced items is hugely profitable.

If you're serious about wanting to make vast amounts of gold, there is nothing 'clever' about farming.

Or I might be good at farming.

It doesn't matter how good you think you are at farming. Someone that knows what they are doing on the AH will always, without a shadow of a doubt, destroy you in terms of GPH.

I know people that can farm 10k in an hour or two reliably

Which is it? An hour? Or two? Because if it's 2, thats 5k per hour, not 10k. Again though, I can make that in less than 10 minutes. You carry on farming though whilst I'm logged out doing other stuff and I'll just return to collect my 10k later from the mail.

..well, other auction players will be loose as well.

Who say's we aren't? I've spent well over 800k in the last few months buying things for myself and friends/guildies.

Seriously, you're either a massive troll, an absolute tool, or maybe even both. Have fun farming though and I'll carry on making millions on the Auction House in wayyyy less time that it's going to take you.

[Dazzy]

you can set up your favorite auto auction/auto loot mail addons in about 4 hours, run them every day and go afk for an hour and hit the gold cap on a lot of servers in a month.

Let me know when you hit the gold cap from farming, I'll look for your post around july 2014.

[Barnabas]

I agree with the title of the thread. The AH is part of what keeps me interested in wow. The rest of the op I disagree with. You make faster gold on the ah than "farming." Killing rare mobs can be profitable if they are up for you to kill it. Even then you will likely resort to the ah to sell drops if the item you have isn't something trade chat isn't immediately interested in. I can make more selling prospected mats than someone out in the world killing mobs and questing alone. The people you hear about or read about didn't make millions in wow just killing mobs.

[Deleted]

Yeah, lots of talking, little action. This is the theory, the results of good farming can give more reliable gold.

Most of the AH games result to huge losses.

I have done my math and research and i play ah for.. 6 hours a day, i got addicted simple as. I earn so many gold m8, that i keep our 25 man guild up with food, flask etc.
I couldt make so many gold in another way, so for me AH is the best way to get gold, and pretty good if you like it.
- After a new exspansion is litterally 1.000.000 gold+ right into the pocket.

[Andyo]

Playing the AH properly & making serious gold from it is exactly the same as investment banking irl.

[Deleted]

Sometimes I think the 'playing the auction house' idea is a strategy to keep players from making gold.

I think people are affected by RL and don't see that the AH might not be the best place to get gold.

I think the AH and playing the AH pretty much is as close to RL as it gets with WoW.

I think you could say:

Playing the AH badly < Killing random trash < Farming professions < Playing the AH well

Being bad with stocks < Having a bad job < Having a good job < Being good with stocks

Just like in RL not everyone can be a winner.

[Woebegone]

I've done the math. No farming is going to compete with the AH if you can make hundreds or even thousands of gold by logging in for five minutes a day. Even if I have to spend time refining stuff, like turning ore into gems, it's something I can do without actually paying any attention to the game.

This is not just "lots of talking, little action". I did this until I was sitting on over 100 000 gold and then just didn't bother anymore. Plenty of others have done as well.

Besides if something in WoW sounds like a real-life fixed income job, it's farming stuff for sale.

[Herecius]

Anyway, I'm done here. People are getting upset anyway even if I present arguments and not just "you don't agree with me, I'll talk to a moderator".

I'll keep playing the AH in a limited fashion as I already do (yep, I do, it doesn't matter that I didn't say it) and I might increase it just for fun for a while. But that doesn't mean I don't see its huge risks, its huge waiting times, and sometimes its own caps.

There's no need to get pissy, come now. Simple truth is that playing the AH right (which is tricky, I won't lie!) can net you incredibly large amounts of gold, for an extremely small amount of work. The setup can take time, yes, but once you get into a 'groove' playing the AH, you just have to hop on, spend 30-40 minutes collecting all your sold stuff, buying things, relisting, crafting, and then go on your way. The money just flows in.

[Fireslave]

People are affected so much by Real life and their locked lives of fixed incomes from one job that they can't see the dynamic world of warcraft doesn't apply to the practices of real life auction houses.

No one is comparing anything here to an irl AH. Fact is the WoW AH is easy to play. You lose 10k gold, who cares, its pixels. Pick up where you left off.You are the only one comparing anything here to real life by attempting to complain that you cant use this tactic in a stock market when in fact no one said you could. You spend 10mins farming your ores through mining you might get 2-3 stacks at best, and a couple of gems. I spend 10mins buying out uncut gems, cut them, put them on AH for 100g profit for 100 of them, and wake up in the morning with 10k profit compared to your what... 500g at best?

[usiris]

Quite simply, there is a cap on what you can farm in one day.

The only cap you have when running the AH is:
1. How much gold you already have
2. How much you willing to put into it
3.(imo)What profs you have

[quietstrm07]

Yeah, lots of talking, little action. This is the theory, the results of good farming can give more reliable gold.

Most of the AH games result to huge losses.

Buying ore -> prospecting -> cutting rare gems / turning uncommon gems into DE fodder is the most well known way to make gold with professions (known as either the obsidium or elementium shuffle) and relies on using the AH. You might just be talking about item flipping which is more of a niche market where you can lose plenty of gold.

Shhh, don't say that, it's a "sure" way to win.

Reality is, auction house "playing" is time consuming with huge risks.

Clever farming of overpriced items is hugely profitable.

People are affected so much by Real life and their locked lives of fixed incomes from one job that they can't see the dynamic world of warcraft doesn't apply to the practices of real life auction houses.

See above point about the "risks." Also, the idea of buy cheap materials, add value through production activities, and sell for higher price is how most of the economy works in real life

This is against the EULA and bannable.

[Unless you meant you click sometimes to post.]

Might recommend you look into TradeSkillMaster as this is an AH addon that you actually click buttons and makes things highly efficient




My general response is this - I can turn about 10k worth of mats into about 60-70k worth of sellable products (not just potentially sellable, but actually selling) within about an hour or two of actually paying attention to what is going on in game (medium population server). I'm pretty sure making 25-30k profit per hour with minimal effort is a bit easier than having to pay attention to where nodes are on a minimap, flying around, obtain the mats, then selling them. I am not saying that farming isn't profitable (say hello to goldthorn or other prof leveling chokepoints), but there are several other things you can do which can be more time and effort efficient for pulling in higher profits

[Borzo]

In 20 minutes of AHing with the Auctioneer addon (and a reasonable amount of experience on how the markets work), I average well over 10k profits. I've been playing for a long time, yes, but I have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of gold... and all from less than 20min a couple times a week with Auctioneer.

[namelessone]

Yeah, lots of talking, little action. This is the theory, the results of good farming can give more reliable gold.

Most of the AH games result to huge losses.

Yeah, all talk and 0 proof.