Inscription - Huge server problem. One player with absolute AH control.

[Deleted]

According to the Undermine Journal, he's always active except 4am - 10am, (So, he's on 18 hours a day) and given his posts, most activity is at 6pm which is around 1k auctions, other times he's on he posts around 250 - 500 new glyphs every hour.

So he isnt botting then just playing quite hard. FAOD it doesnt mean hes playing hardcore during those entire hours. More likely he is relisting and undercutting.

It can show him on during that time but he could just be using the ah feature from his phone.
Logged in doesnt always mean playing.

Follow some of the above strategies dude or find another market. On the basis of what you ahve told us, then I dont believe he is doing anything wrong.

[ZeroWashu]

So out of curiosity what price is he selling at?

Really you cannot control a market unless you make it unprofitable for anyone else to enter it. Yes there are lifers and many do play the AH. However most of them can be seriously toyed with to do your own bidding. Sounds likes you need to change your strategy.

To later responses, he is not doing anything wrong. He is not messing up your server's economy, it just sounds like your out of your league.

So what are the prices he posts and what you post at?

---------- Post added 2012-06-22 at 12:15 PM ----------

if he is literally on 24/7 then he will be botting. Nobody plays the game for 24 hours a day seven days a week legit.

far too many people are on enough hours a day to give the impression of 24/7

[Rotted]

I had exactly the same problem selling uncut meta gems the last couple of weeks, this girl / lad, continued to undercut me by 1 copper, no matter the time or the day, I waited until un sociable hours, I waited until raid nights at the finish time of most of the guilds finish, I even added him to see when he was online and wasn't to try, but within seconds, I was undercut regardless

We drove the price down from 350 to 198 in one night undercutting each other, my plan was, hey these cost me nothing to make so Im going to put them really low and see if he undercuts, he did, every time

so what have I done in the end? I wisped him politely, and we chatted, we both agreed that between the two of us we were decimating the price and both losing out on profits, our solution?

I sell my un cuts directly to him at a set price each week, I make a tidy profit as they cost me little or nothing, and he puts them in the ah for more, or sometimes less if someone undercuts him, its a tidy deal, I make a decent amount, AH price stays higher,

Turned out he sells most mats on the ah as well, so I send him every single mat I collect, no matter from what expansion. Make love, not warcraft

[Deleted]

This reminds me of this one guy on my server that was logging from 10 to 10 minutes to undercut everyone in the AH even tho i had every single glyph in the game i would make a lot less since he would undercut a lot of people generally

[ZeroWashu]

This reminds me of this one guy on my server that was logging from 10 to 10 minutes to undercut everyone in the AH even tho i had every single glyph in the game i would make a lot less since he would undercut a lot of people generally

Well far too many people when confronted by a lifer in control of the AH always fail for one simple reason, they keep trying to play the AH as if that person does not exist.

The rule is simple, you set their maximum profit level. That means, you don't be stupid and cancel/repost for 1c less. You learn your costs relative to theirs and then you gut their market. On my server glyphs are 249/299 each. I sell ALL for 99g. Never higher. I post none below 30g now. Why 30? That is more than twice my maximum cost to make any glyph. Why 99 and not 248 or 199 or whatever? Because I don't want to have to watch my auctions. So I determine their maximum profit.

What usually happens is that they will undercut you for a while before they start buying you out. Oh it may take a week or more before they stop posting below your much much lower pricing but most likely they will buy your auctions.

Now to abuse them properly you must...
1) Post 48 hours.
2) Cut their price by a third or more. If you have to go so low you lose money then the market is saturated and just avoid it.
3) Post a single copy of each item (gem/glyph/chat) unless they are just so uber popular then post TWO.
4) Do not care if other people bitch at you for "gutting" the market or such non sense. Your not here to have them like you.

[Deleted]

On my server glyphs are 249/299 each. I sell ALL for 99g. Never higher. I post none below 30g now. Why 30? That is more than twice my maximum cost to make any glyph. Why 99 and not 248 or 199 or whatever? Because I don't want to have to watch my auctions. So I determine their maximum profit.

I assume you're on a small server? On large servers prices for glyphs are driven down much further. Plenty of people are willing to settle for 5-10g profit per glyph.

What you describe doesn't really apply to markets with a large number of players. But if I were your competitor, with a fixation on glyphs, I would simply go for 29/299. Since I check my auctions more regularly, I would nearly always be undercutting you. So you would sell very little. Meanwhile, at twice the maximum cost to make a glyph my profits would still be decent.

What usually happens is that they will undercut you for a while before they start buying you out.

Not exactly, it depends:
1) Buying you out may be profitable: If I buy my glyphs at 30g from you and sell them for 299g, that's much more profitable than making them for 14g and selling them for 29g.
2) Buying you out may not be profitable, then it will stop sooner or later.
It obviously all depends on how many glyphs you post: Too many, and buying you out becomes too expensive.

If he buys you out and keeps buying you out, that means you're his dedicated little crafter!

[Farabee]

It can show him on during that time but he could just be using the ah feature from his phone.

WoW Remote puts a hard capped limit on how many auctions you can put up which is 200 per day. I have to limit my relists to the high-value cuts (reds and some orange) to not run out on the limit on a normal day, and sometimes I still hit that limit within 2-3 hours...this is only posting 1 of each gem up at a time.

At the volumes listed above there is no way he's using the phone app. You simply cannot be competitive using only the phone app unless you are using it to watch only a few auctions, this guy insta-relists hundreds of types of glyphs.

[Mission]

He can't be crafting and posting at the same time. He might have 2 accounts but it's impossible to do both unless there is a bot controllign one of the two

ahahahah rofl really ? find some of my previous posts about what we multiboxers do..

alot who own the AH are hidden mulitboxers, x5+ accounts. We dont show our AH boxing toons in same way as we do our raid, pve, pvper toons with smiliar names etc

Alot of us dump our ah boxers into different guilds with diff names so you cannot link us to our other accounts toons,we can mill,propsect, de on 5+ toons at once and you can not compete with us, we have no down time... while you do. This guy sounds like me a while ago, i owned the jc, scribe and cnhant market for a long long time on my realm.... you cant compete walk away, he will get bored eventually... if not, try a diff corner of the market...

its so easy to own the AH on scribes when you have multiple accounts, and its his right to do so long as he aint botting and most of us dont but ppl think we do cause we are smarter than you

[Deleted]

I commend this guy, allbeit he/she is a little sad for sinking 18 hours a day into wow but absolutely destroying every scribe on the server and then taunting you by giving away the money, that is delicious <3

[Deleted]

what the gguy is doing is an inevitable conclusion of the way the ah works. The people that complain would be trying to do the same to others. Loys of the strategies on how to deal with the guy will not work except.

Co operate
find another market
destroy his market
alternatives

I doubt he reposts so many lyphs all the time. he sounds experienced. he cna do it with minimum fuss if he has TSM.

[Deleted]

OP I was in a similar situation, now I've got a pretty big chunk of gold to work with myself (over 1 million) but the first thing I did was learn every glyph in game, make multiple units of each and just crash the market completely, I knew and accepted that I couldn't compete with this individual because he simply had far more time than me, which is fine, when it comes to the AH, the person with the most time and (sometimes) gold wins. My intention was to push him off the AH for the MoP release so that I'd have the glyph market to myself (I already have the gem/enchant/mount market), and I'd do this through denying him the vast gold he was making. He responded by buying my glyphs out, so I responded by making even more of them and listing them at lower prices, I actually made quite a bit of gold off him before he gave up.

HOWEVER, I heavily suspected this person was botting and encouraged people to report him, he received a 72 ban the other week and has now had to move to another account to avoid a permanent ban. The best part is he's now sending angry messages to the other scribes on the AH and while I doubt I'll make any gold in MoP from glyphs because of this person, I know for a fact that he won't.

Oh and by the way, he isn't giving his gold away, no matter what lengths he goes to to make you believe otherwise

[Hoddie]

Well far too many people when confronted by a lifer in control of the AH always fail for one simple reason, they keep trying to play the AH as if that person does not exist.

The rule is simple, you set their maximum profit level. That means, you don't be stupid and cancel/repost for 1c less. You learn your costs relative to theirs and then you gut their market. On my server glyphs are 249/299 each. I sell ALL for 99g. Never higher. I post none below 30g now. Why 30? That is more than twice my maximum cost to make any glyph. Why 99 and not 248 or 199 or whatever? Because I don't want to have to watch my auctions. So I determine their maximum profit.

What usually happens is that they will undercut you for a while before they start buying you out. Oh it may take a week or more before they stop posting below your much much lower pricing but most likely they will buy your auctions.

Now to abuse them properly you must...
1) Post 48 hours.
2) Cut their price by a third or more. If you have to go so low you lose money then the market is saturated and just avoid it.
3) Post a single copy of each item (gem/glyph/chat) unless they are just so uber popular then post TWO.
4) Do not care if other people bitch at you for "gutting" the market or such non sense. Your not here to have them like you.

Some great advice here. What I always do is send my competition friendly whispers when I know they're cancelling their auctions to undercut me. Things like "how low can you go?" and "race you to the bottom!" ... I rarely get a reply but I like to imagine their rage. Assuming they're not botting that is. Your competition will keep you on their friends list so then can see when you log, so you can whisper them to your heart's content knowing they're not going to /ignore you.

[Deleted]

Nah I would have you on my friends list but ignore you as well. I'd find the whispering too tedious.
48 hours isnt going to do it.

All depends on who gets bored first. If the guy is rich then it probably didnt happen by accident. If my markets were destroyed then the obvious reply is to destroy the other persons as well. No matter how much money or resources you think you have then there are probably people with more.

[Deleted]

I commend this guy, allbeit he/she is a little sad for sinking 18 hours a day into wow but absolutely destroying every scribe on the server and then taunting you by giving away the money, that is delicious <3

As much as this can irritate me aswell, I have to agree with you here... Creds to this guy

And we are at the end of the x-pac, AH is more or less dead...I am not playing it to earn gold anymore, just trying to get rid of crap, and doing some restocking for mop

[Chin Music]

I have the same problem with what I presume is a botter, since he is literally active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and Undermine Journal confirms it. Auto-undercuts any gem cut you post by 1 copper.

If someone is really doing it just for the sake of ruining other's time, then I don't see why we have to put up with that kind of harassment. It's not tolerated in other parts of the game and it's not tolerated in real life. Slavish devotion to the "free market" (which is in fact anything but) is the mantra only of those willing to resort to such nasty tactics just to hurt others. I don't think they need to be banned, but they do need to be crippled.

[Deleted]

What server are you on?

[Blackmist]

Sell herbs then (and report the many bots you'll see to ram the price of herbs through the roof). If he's actually sitting there running scans and making auctions, then he's entitled to his market as far as I'm concerned. He's using his own time and effort to put you out of business. Suck it up, it's how life works. Doesn't help that most players only need to buy about 10 glyphs ever and be done with it. That's what killed inscription.

Of course, if he's running an auction bot, you can get his ass banned. 1 minute undercuts doesn't sound too excessive tbh. I'm sure Auctioneer can handle that.

All you can do is undercut him to the point where he makes no profit.

[Deleted]

I have the same problem with what I presume is a botter, since he is literally active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and Undermine Journal confirms it. Auto-undercuts any gem cut you post by 1 copper.

If someone is really doing it just for the sake of ruining other's time, then I don't see why we have to put up with that kind of harassment. It's not tolerated in other parts of the game and it's not tolerated in real life. Slavish devotion to the "free market" (which is in fact anything but) is the mantra only of those willing to resort to such nasty tactics just to hurt others. I don't think they need to be banned, but they do need to be crippled.

I gather he is doing to to make gold on the ah just like everyone else. The best description was somehwere on this thread where they described ah as a bit like pvp. People are too easy to scream bot when someone else is putting more time in even if its a foolish waste of time. Mostly the people complaoning are the people who want to make gold are being denied by one person, but want to do the same to other people.

If Blizzard banned certain addons or features that enable people to list and undercut so quickly, then the whole task would be a lot harder for any one seller to dominate.

Oh and PS Farabee thanks for setting me straight on the ah app. Is that per character?

[Vulpei]

I dont understand how scribes still think they can make money at the end of an expansion. Every other profession is sitting by, waiting for mists to drop so they can level up again, every single thread about AH manipulation is by scribes at this point, and you only buy a glyph once and forget about it.

Let him control to AH, save all your inks until mists and sell them to the thousands of new monks who roll. You will make more money then than this guy is making in the year prior.

If you have a problem, undercut him by 50 gold instead of the one copper people normally do, crash the market and let him save his own inks till he gets rich of the monk goldmine. Stop Bittching about how a capitalist market works and make it work for you, or get out and farm dailies like the people who actually bring gold into the economy do.

[Gombadoh]

its the way of the world.. just undercut when you can n you might sell some stuffz