One Auction House for All Realms

[Thelxi]

almost everything would drop to a bit above vendor price, but on the other hand you would be able to sell very rare stuff for ridiculous prices

[Deleted]

People in this topic forget that there isn't only the supply side od things but there's demand too. You worry that you would get undercutted after 2 seconds? Well within 5 seconds both yours and the undercutter's auctions will be gone anyway....

Prices would certainly drop though... And btw if they dropped to a point where items go almost for vendor prices, people would stop farminf and prices would go up again, thats basic supply and demand.

[usiris]

Wrong. You are assuming that there would be a higher supply rate then buy rate, which would be terribly false. I have wanted to level up professions on alts, but can't do it as quickly as I would like to, because I have to farm the mats myself, because no one sells what I need. Also rares would be just as rare, and you would not have any difficulty selling them for a nice price.


What he is suggesting is exactly how the Runescape economy works, and it's incredibly stable. There is also a lot of money to be made via flipping.

See Runescape Grand Exchange:

http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Grand_Exchange

Its that way because its regulated by strict algorithms and restrictions set in place by the company.
You cannot make a transition from something like that(regulated) to one like WoWs economy(open) well.

[Deleted]

it would be frustrating to buy things as people all over the world would try to buy the same item at the same time. economy wise it would make the markets meet in the midle of todays prices. The problem would be an endless market for goldsellers as there would be close to unlimeted demand.
one major good thing would be that it would be impossible for ppl to have a monopol due to the extrem supply

[PBitt]

It would be horrible, if you were trying to sell stuff at least, everything would be cheap as hell, yes, even with shit selling like hotcakes. Just imagine all people out there that play the AH and do little else all in one place...yeah. Not to mention, with 250X or more players all trying to buy stuff at once...yeah.

[MoanaLisa]

It would lead to a massive crash in the prices of stock due to the fact your current population would change from thousands or hundred in most cases to literally millions. There would be no ability to monopolize the market as undercutters would be able to do so without the fear of being caught due to the servers never being he same. Farming would die as it would become a cast that auctioned goods would simply be going for slightly more than the price to sell them to a vendor.

So pretty much this: Only good things

I voted no but I'm not so sure that the above is correct either for all cases.

On small servers with limited economies, yes. Prices drop dramatically and people running markets will lose the ability to do so. On large-to-full servers with very robust economies, less likely.

While I wouldn't be for one grand AH (and voted as such), I think there's a lot of merit in the idea of merging low-population AH's into one larger one. In keeping with this, servers with greatly imbalanced faction populations would be a candidate for this as well as long as factions were kept separated.

It would be a complicated thing to manage which is why I don't see it happening.

[SamR]

The larger the market, the more efficient it is. A more efficient market is less fun to play for the sellers, but it's a huge benefit to the buyers. Prices would stabilize AND there were would a larger selection of goods to choose from.

[Daedelus]

Basic laws of economics mean that prices for everything for which there is a plentiful supply (gems, ore, enchanting mats, herbs, flasks, potions etc) would be driven down until they were the same (or only slightly higher) than vendor prices.

Rarer items e.g. crafted armor would be driven down to the costs of the materials.

Very rare items might hold their value in the market but they'd have to be very rare indeed i.e. only a dozen or so on the market at any given time.

[Vulpei]

Don't try to talk economics with WoW players, they just want to keep their monopoly, economics be damned.

[Deleted]

Too.... much... Infinite... Dust......

*dies*

[SamR]

Basic laws of economics mean that prices for everything for which there is a plentiful supply (gems, ore, enchanting mats, herbs, flasks, potions etc) would be driven down until they were the same (or only slightly higher) than vendor prices.

Rarer items e.g. crafted armor would be driven down to the costs of the materials.

Very rare items might hold their value in the market but they'd have to be very rare indeed i.e. only a dozen or so on the market at any given time.

Not sure which laws of economics you're using but that's not true at all. Why would ore be driven down to vendor price? If it came anywhere even close to vendor price, people would stop harvesting it, the supply would dive, and the demand would drive the price back up.

Many crafted armor pieces are already below the price of the mats. Even on lower population server. This is because a lot of armor is not crafted for resale. They're crafted to level a profession and sold at a loss. The marginal benefit for the crafter is the skillup, not the compensation from the resale.

There are a lot of people in this thread invoking fake economic laws.

[Deleted]

Would settle for a merge between each servers Alliance and Horde, without the huge cuts from neutral ah.

[Samaramon]

There would be a billion items D:

[SamR]

Would settle for a merge between each servers Alliance and Horde, without the huge cuts from neutral ah.

The minute they allow cross-faction email on the same account, the AH fanatics will balance out the 2 AH pretty quickly even on servers with lopsided populations.

[Mozu]

There would be a billion items D:

There would also be a billion buyers. Supply would surely increase, but demand would proportionally increase as well.

[Sole-Warrior]

Absolutely, I have been looking for a couple ultra rare pieces of transmog gear to complete and just can't find on my server, despite the fact its so crouded.
Mal'ganis US.

[Deleted]

If Blizzard could make this work. I'd love it. I'm sick of paying 400g per blue gem and 300g per glyph on my dead realm.

[Missbenedict]

"that auction no longer exists""that auction no longer exists""that auction no longer exists""that auction no longer exists""that auction no longer exists""that auction no longer exists""that auction no longer exists""that auction no longer exists""that auction no longer exists""that auction no longer exists""that auction no longer exists"

You get where I'm going with this don't you?

[Kzilla]

Economically feasible.

Economically it'd be a horrible idea. Blizzard spending thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of extra man hours to develop and restructure their servers just so you can get a few more items you wanted quicker and for cheaper.

Oh, you meant economically feasible from a player's perspective and not from the people who'd have to actually do the work to make it happen. Got it.

[Sole-Warrior]

As long as this cross-realm AH is seperate from the server AH I think its a great idea.