World of Warcraft®

I am a bank alt. I enjoy playing the AH market, and attempt to do so fairly, most often listing re-sales for between 80 and 110% of my Auctioneer's recorded average pricing.

Recently, I've noticed many mats markets have deflated vastly--over the past 2 or 3 weeks in particular. Now, this isn't something that upsets me. There's money to be made no matter what materials are selling for. And my crafting alts are more than happy to take advantage of these low prices for their own consumption.

But I was curious as to what you other guys thought the cause might be, and whether the market will ever recover. I've honestly been wondering whether it's time to reset Auctioneer and begin building a new scans database (my current one began in September).

Some examples: many old world ore, bars, and herbs are selling for between 20 and 50% of their historical value. Mithril ore's market, for example, is completely flooded, with stacks being listed for buyouts 1/5th of the average value I have listed. Even the always expensive Frostweave has recently dropped to 50-70% of standard.

Obviously, the devaluation of WotLK mats is to be expected. Ebonsilk is the new Frostweave, etc. But these devaluations have seemingly trickled down through the entire supply. My guesses:

- As more players have moved into Cata content, Cata mat prices are beginning to decline and normalize (Ebonsilk has fallen to 60-70%, Obdsidium Bar to 70-90%, herbs to 70-90%). Obviously, the initial prices weren't going to last. (And thank goodness, for anyone trying to level their professions using AH-bought mats.)

- The plethora of alts exploring post-Shattering content has lead to a glut of old-world mats, previously at all-time highs due to the population by-and-large being bored with pre-Wrath content and rolling few alts.

A guildmate also proposed that Blizzard has recently cracked down on a type of hacking that allowed the unscrupulous to quickly, easily harvest mats. But I had not noticed this myself in the wild, nor am I aware of how much (if at all) this affected our server. And honestly, I'm seeing more quantity right now, not less.

One could guess that there are more mats available simply because there are more people playing right now than ever. But with a presumably equal number of players crafting, wouldn't you think this would balance out?

Something to ponder for those of us who enjoy the economics of the game.

Well, I don't think this thread is going to get a great many positive responses, because very few people want prices to be very high. You should understand that buying and reselling mats at higher prices is much like stealing. You're not doing anything productive for the server; you're kind of skimming money off of each AH transaction for your own benefit. So while it may sound like fun to you, most people are going to look at you with disdain.

Beyond that, you should understand that the rush of raiders (people willing to pay anything to get into the first tier of raiding ASAP) is pretty much ending now. Lots of people were willing to spend a lot of their stockpiled resources to get into groups and start downing bosses; that's why things sold for so much at the start of Cata.

But now the server has more gear, and there are more people farming more content. Raiders don't feel the need to over-compensate at all costs when they're getting stuff down.

You'll have your booms down the line where you can take advantage of people's interest in certain items as new patches hit, but the fun of skimming huge amounts of money off super motivated players is coming to a close. Just be prepped for the next expansion and make even more gold!

Me? I'm going to play the game because it's more fun than buying and selling stuff on the AH to me. :P

Thank you for your reply. I'm actually a little surprised at the suggestion that most people would have a negative reaction to those who the auction house (within reason). While I can appreciate that sentiment when it comes to gougers, tricksters, and exploiters, I think there are a fair number of us who take legitimate delight in buying & selling at fair values. It truly is a game within a game to me.

As mentioned, I rarely sell for higher than the established average price of an item. I also price all my auctions individually, rather than relying on the batch listing features of add-ons like Auctioneer, which do all the thinking for you. For the amount of time I invest, I'm probably actually making less than those who farm for their gold.

I think it's an exaggeration to compare reselling to theft. Is it something "productive for the server"? Not really. But neither are most facets of the game that players find individually rewarding. They do it for their own enjoyment. Few behave generally with altruistic intent. It's certainly possible to attempt to be fair and respectful while enjoying oneself, however, which I strive to do (whether selling on the AH, instancing, or whatever).

Do you honestly think it's unethical--for example--when desiring to post an item at the established price of 1g, to buy out and re-list the same item that someone else has listed for 10s? It's not as nice as allowing someone else to benefit from that extremely low price, no. But the game's economy has been designed to allow players to impact the market.

And to return to the question of productivity, re-listing an under-priced item may not be a positive action. But where the server's economy is concerned, it's not really a negative action, either. If you continue to propagate a standard price for a commodity, perceptive future sellers are also going to be able to take advantage of that standard, and potentially earn more than if they were simply undercutting what was already on the market, posting at random, or accepting the default auction house's consistently absurd pricing recommendations.

Anyway, I made my original post out of a legitimate desire to discuss the economy of our server, and the game in general. As such, I appreciate your respectful reply. My post was not meant as "Whine! Prices have dropped so much! I can't make nearly as much gold as I used to!" (Merchants adjust to market conditions, anyway. It's part of the fun of it.) I've noticed some definite trends that struck me as having no obvious cause, and it made me curious. Raiding progression explains some things. But also should have no or little impact on why mithril ore, for example, is now selling for 1/5th of its original value. (An increase in nodes or spawn times post-shattering, on the other hand, might.)

You're looking at the whole dynamic of farming in game completely changing. When they restructured vanilla zones for Cataclysm, they also restructured all mining and herbing nodes -- you don't have to spend hours upon hours circling Silithus to level your mining anymore, because you literally stumble across the stuff just about everywhere. Since so many people are leveling alts and leveling alt professions, there's a lot of farming going on, so those low-level mats really aren't selling for a lot.

Same goes for gear and everything else - the introduction of heirloom gear really eliminated the need to pick up green gear for the majority of the server population.

What you're looking at isn't a case of more people crafting, it's a case of the supply vastly, vastly outnumbering the demand for items. If I were you, I'd reset Auctioneer, because as of the Shattering patch farming mats got exponentially easier, and it's doubtful we'll ever see low level mats return to pre-Cataclysm prices.