AH changes are the worst thing thats happened to turtle

[Archimonde]

I've been here since the very beginning, back in 2018 AH was so dead the staff itself used to post entry level materials at low prices. Now we have an AH with more than 19K entries (over 22K a couple days ago and still dropping). The last couple of months were great for AH business, low prices, most you could think of up for grabs. Still, there were problems and a change was needed. People posting materials at 1000% market value on 400 entries of 1x, not only did it piss me off, it also eats server processing. Lo and behold; changes have come, did they solve the problem? Part of it.

I still see the very same players posting materials for 1000% market value, all they did was compress it from 400x entries of 1x item to 20x20, for instance. The same result could be achieved by placing a cap for AH entries per account. Meanwhile, with the deposit fees most material prices have gone up, I don't really buy gear off the AH, but I'm sure deposit fees will have a BIG impact on gear too. The AH cut, on the other hand, is totally fine, it takes away some of the server inflation and unlike the deposit fee it does not keep people from posting cheap materials and gear on the AH.

To sum it up, most realms have gone through this problem, AH fees saved none of them from it. With those changes I fear we will lose something truly great and unique. Turtle WoW's Auction House was a thing of beauty, please don't take it away.

[Jamey]

We've seen all the feedback in this post and are having internal discussions about said changes. We will continue to monitor the situation, thank you!

[Vociferous]

The AH cut, on the other hand, is totally fine, it takes away some of the server inflation and unlike the deposit fee it does not keep people from posting cheap materials and gear on the AH.

To sum it up, most realms have gone through this problem, AH fees saved none of them from it. With those changes I fear we will lose something truly great and unique. Turtle WoW's Auction House was a thing of beauty, please don't take it away.

This is a unique problem here with the massive influx of low level players. There seems to be more than 1 problem here. While I do very much agree that low level materials should be plentiful and a level 10 shouldn't be making gold on the AH, the tons and tons and tons of people postings waaaay too much stuff is an issue also. I don't have an answer lol. You can't segregate fees for high level people and low level people. What will have to be done will have to affect everyone equally, high and low level. I made a joke in the newcomer guild chat yesterday that there need to be server side AH bots buying anything and everything that is vendor price and keep it off the AH. This will get rid of all the low level spam people are selling AT VENDOR PRICE anyways. If someone puts a low level item up at 400% vendor price that's not uncommon and is a good starting price. But if someone puts a low level item up for like 10000% markup that just floods the system, like you said. Problem is a lot of it comes from the player base. People see the AH. They see all these materials at crazy prices and think "that's how I make gold" because how do you make gold on WoW? Quest or sell stuff or use the AH. We have a cycle that needs to be broken.

(Close the AH for 24hours and make a bot keep stuff on the AH at a reasonable marked up price (200-400% vendor price) and this is the base price set until the market corrects itself due to people buying and selling. any gold obtained by the bot through these sales would be destroyed. People may drop stuff back on the AH close to vendor price but chances are they will go with the base set price and work down until the price meets demand whatever the server and population set it at. This would have to be a cooperation between player base also.)
That's one very heavy handed suggestion :(

[Mac]

I personally never had an issue getting a mount at 40. I just posted all the useful junk I found on the AH for above vendor prices while leveling. Green items, mats I didn't need, even white items. While the profit margin for each individual item was minimal, there was basically no risk in doing this since there was no deposit, and in the long run, it does add up compared to just vendoring the items. Additionally, I knew other players were getting nice little upgrades as they leveled without breaking the bank (or, alternatively, enchanters were able to skill up for relatively cheap).

For my hardcore characters who couldn't use the AH, I'd just farm out a couple different spots for gold at 40.

[Geojak]

funny things is, despite the depsits are profuit cut, there is stil tons of things posted daily BELOW vendor prices. mageroyal is a commondity among them. it was the same on blizzard classic servers. mageroyals with or without fees are worth 20c.

actually i am saving those people by buying there below vendor shit up. atleast they wont lose their deposit.

for me, i perosnally just cant handle getting expired auctions back and knowing i just made a loss. i hate taking that risk, so only thing i post now is disenchanting mats.

[Karpfend]

Signing out of this discussion, where everything is said, before I start suggesting that to reduce the amount of items on the market, you need to reduce the amount of items dropping in the world. That would be an unpopular opinion.

For real though, please don't break the markets neck completelly by proposing new interventions on a whim of your guts.

[Bogyone]

Good day, fellow Turtle players.
allow me to share a controversial idea that I personally would implement on private servers running in perpetuity with endless gold generation.

Install a vendor for all kind of trade goods, regular or exotic (but not crafted, e.g. no Arcanite Bars), that would sell trade skill items for certain fixed cost, slightly higher than street price. This puts a lid on unending spiral of growing prices, inflation etc. Players would compete with prices on AH in different way, service sector could perhaps boom and people with huge gold supply could spend some to trade for instant profession leveling.
And in case population would go down - remaining players would be less dependent on shrinking resource pool.

This concept always causes backlash but I'll risk it anyway. ;)

[Vociferous]

I personally never had an issue getting a mount at 40. I just posted all the useful junk I found on the AH for above vendor prices while leveling. Green items, mats I didn't need, even white items. While the profit margin for each individual item was minimal, there was basically no risk in doing this since there was no deposit, and in the long run, it does add up compared to just vendoring the items. Additionally, I knew other players were getting nice little upgrades as they leveled without breaking the bank (or, alternatively, enchanters were able to skill up for relatively cheap).

For my hardcore characters who couldn't use the AH, I'd just farm out a couple different spots for gold at 40.

This is true and while the argument isn't about mount money, it's about the AH in general and the future of the AH and the players involved. Farming the money isn't the issue, really. It's that the market itself is broken in terms of how it was 'intended' to work. Right now I could probably spend under 50g and completely max a profession which is ridiculous in my opinion. The market is part of the game. The grind trying to find items and trade with other players for that gold you farmed or items you farmed. I'm telling you that it takes away from the experience when you can go sit at the AH and level professions without putting in any work into it. Granted enough gold you can do that anyways, but right now everyone can do it without being 60 doing end game raids max gold. Now this may seem trivial to people who are level 60 and have everything they need. But to a new player coming to this server expecting an experience close to vanilla with tweaks to make it better? This is not better...

However little my opinion may matter I have played on many many servers and been playing WoW since 2004. If I wanted a fun server where I could level everything with no effort at all, I mean the rested exp given out is enough, I wouldn't be here. And the thing is this server is advertised as a story expansion and not a completely redefined fun server so the argument that it's how this server works is invalid. If you want a stable economy and a stable game and stable player base that will keep people other than the few that want everything handed to them then the market is a big part of the experience. The want for items and the struggle to get them, the urge to keep going to find that blue item or get that gold, is part of the WoW experience that is being taken away.

Without the AH to fight over to level professions, find armor, trade my needed items for other items I need... All you have is leveling and spending 2 hours farming enough gold to purchase all the mats you need on the AH to level a profession. You just took away the grind required. Now, having a lot of new players is going to change all of this I understand that. But the fact that you can't make more than a couple silver off of selling an item on the AH.. All of this bottom feeding AH posting is going to work its way up to level 60s where everyone is going to have the same blues the same BoE purples, everyone has 100's of potions 1000's of herbs max bags and that is going to happen WAY TOO QUICK and the player base is going to get bored. We all know servers only last so long. The player base will get bored. How long do you entertain them? How long do you keep them playing? There are tons of people here playing. They want to play with other players. Keep them wanting more.

All I've got. Hope the devs make a good decision and thanks for hosting this server and this community. Over 1000 players on usually. It's as big as it gets for a private server and it's still growing.

[Ezuba]

However little my opinion may matter I have played on many many servers and been playing WoW since 2004. If I wanted a fun server where I could level everything with no effort at all, I mean the rested exp given out is enough, I wouldn't be here. And the thing is this server is advertised as a story expansion and not a completely redefined fun server so the argument that it's how this server works is invalid. If you want a stable economy and a stable game and stable player base that will keep people other than the few that want everything handed to them then the market is a big part of the experience. The want for items and the struggle to get them, the urge to keep going to find that blue item or get that gold, is part of the WoW experience that is being taken away.

Without the AH to fight over to level professions, find armor, trade my needed items for other items I need... All you have is leveling and spending 2 hours farming enough gold to purchase all the mats you need on the AH to level a profession. You just took away the grind required. Now, having a lot of new players is going to change all of this I understand that. But the fact that you can't make more than a couple silver off of selling an item on the AH.. All of this bottom feeding AH posting is going to work its way up to level 60s where everyone is going to have the same blues the same BoE purples, everyone has 100's of potions 1000's of herbs max bags and that is going to happen WAY TOO QUICK and the player base is going to get bored. We all know servers only last so long. The player base will get bored. How long do you entertain them? How long do you keep them playing? There are tons of people here playing. They want to play with other players. Keep them wanting more.

All I've got. Hope the devs make a good decision and thanks for hosting this server and this community. Over 1000 players on usually. It's as big as it gets for a private server and it's still growing.

Are you arguing that it is both too hard and too easy to make enough gold to play the game how you want to play the game while leveling up? On an unrelated note, are you a republican?

[Vociferous]

Are you arguing that it is both too hard and too easy to make enough gold to play the game how you want to play the game while leveling up? On an unrelated note, are you a republican?

A game that's been out for 15+ years, making gold isn't hard. Adding a fee to the AH won't make it easier to make gold. What a fee will do, and what has already started happening since fee was added, is it allows for competition between players to be able to use the AH. Already explained in detail several scenarios how this plays out. The AH is turning into more than just a vendor dump. The AH was part of the game originally. The fee was, also. The game was built around this mechanic and there isn't anything in place to control inflation and deflation otherwise. I'm sure suggestions are welcome. A fee controls the economy, and that was the main point of my argument here. I used a low level starting on this server as an example, please, don't put words in my mouth or extrapolate something from what I wrote that is not there.

But in the end, yes it will make it easier to make gold. Because it allows for competition. Economics is a very circular argument.

I feel this needs further explanation. If you are a level 60 worried about prices going up to the point you can't afford, that won't and can't happen with 1500 people playing and using the AH. As more people level, those items at level 60 will become more valuable and raise in price. This is going to happen regardless of a fee or not. The population will eventually settle to where everyone can afford what they need and the gold that is available in game will be used so it keeps a constant flow and you don't have 1000 people having either max gold or no gold. So how does a player make gold other than the AH? They kill stuff, quest, vendor useless stuff. This money generation will work it's way up through the system and prices will keep going up and up and up as more players join creating something akin to you can't afford it unless you play 24 hours a day. Want to combat that? Put a fee. On the other hand, as more and more 60's level alts they will continue to buy needed materials off the AH. What happens? They quest and kill stuff and vendor stuff to generate money. So you have a runaway train of endless gold. This causes the "gold" to be worthless causing nothing to be worth anything. Which means anything that could make money in the WoW world, how the game was designed, is worthless. Making money is now only generated by questing and vendoring for constant new money supply because the money isn't flowing from 60's to level 1's. Economics. Then as more people have less gold they are going to farm more and sell more and drop the prices. This could go on for days going back and forth of how this will do this and that.

[Jolikmc]

I don't have anything of worth to contribute to this topic, though I do have a question. Is the tax really that bad?

I have a bank alt that I sell low-level mats on. I usually sell them under market value – sometimes sharply under, depending on how common something is. (Looking at you, Pattern: Red Linen Robe.) I have noticed a sharp increase of prices to items I used to sell, basically, at vendor price, and I have upped my own prices as a result. However, I don't think my "profit margin" has really taken a hit because of it. If I'm making less money in the long run, I genuinely haven't noticed. I'm still earning what I like to consider a reasonable amount of profits.

Now, I should quality qualify… the items I sell are, as stated, low-level mats, recipes, and so on. Copper Bars, Linen Cloth, Training Sword of the X, et cetera. So, that said, I may yet to have seen the "full effect" of this. But, it seems like as long as people are putting items up with the 10% tax and the "listing fee" in mind, there shouldn't really be a problem?

But, as I said, that's just me, a low-level vendor selling low-level items.

[Geojak]

I am starting to slightly change my opinion. The fees do a good job forcing sellers to undercut more aggressively to not lose deposits. This works well on arcanites bars for example.

Other rich markets like thorium or runecloth seem only midly affected.

The green leveling market has severely crashed and low level crafter will once more have to vendor their crafted items. This was much better before.

The same at vendor price items still go for often times below vendor price. Recipes, thick spider silk, tiger eye, truesilver to name a few common items. The fees did not help here at all.

All in all, the introduction of fees has an overall positive affected on bsbalcing the lvl 60 marts markets and is absolutely terrible at fixing our problems everywhere else. But it did indeed lower the amount of total auctions and stop ah abuses as bank that pays you.

Now I will suggest a new possible compromise:
unify the post durations, so it is always the max 3 days but charges the deposit for a short 6 h auction.

Currently the way it works, EU players can use shorter durations to sell on peak titems with Low deposit. While na or players from downtime ares of the World need to use longer duration and pay more deposit, since less buyers are online when they are awake.

This is imo an unfairness we could solve with my suggestion.

Additionally we are lowering deposits which allows niche and low level markets more breathing spaces, while keeping some deposits.

By keeping some deposita we also prevent ah absues since you still gotta pay some.

I think I would prefer this over my last suggestion, which in hindsight feels a bit too gimmicky

[Lexiebean]

I've been playing vanilla WoW since the BETA. That's nearly 18 years of this.

It's only in the past year or so that I've experienced an AH without listing fees.

Given the sheer amount of time I've spent playing WITH fees vs without, I have no issues with the change to bring them back in.

Fees are my normal experience.
Using the AH as a bank that sometimes returns money for the items that I store is not.

[0ri]

How about you base the fee on a percentage of the price you want to auction the item for and not on the vendor price ?

[Geojak]

how would that work? start bid price? then ppl put in in wit hbid price 1 copper and cancel auction later on. buyout price? then you first have to make the fundamental change that every auction must have a a buyout price which is currently optional.

[Mac]

How about you base the fee on a percentage of the price you want to auction the item for and not on the vendor price ?

Not a bad idea.

how would that work? start bid price? then ppl put in in wit hbid price 1 copper and cancel auction later on. buyout price? then you first have to make the fundamental change that every auction must have a a buyout price which is currently optional.

Based on buyout. If there's no buyout, then based on vendor.

[Geojak]

Oh thats sounds gimmicky as hell. When I sell expensive disenchanting mats, like grater nether essence that go for over 6g easily per piece, I would now have to decide, do I pay deposits basen on the buyout, or do opt to put no buyout and also pay no deposit.

I don't rly like it, feels not consistent enough

[Whosthechicken]

Before we decide whether deposits are good or not, or share our weird wacky ideas about how deposits might work, I feel like we need to answer a question that's not really defined anywhere:

What are deposits meant to accomplish in the first place?

What kind of behavior are they meant to stop?

What should they do? What should they not do?

Until we get that written down, we're just stumbling in the dark.

[Ezuba]

I'd expect the staff to be 100% transparent about their goals.

[Geojak]

they did say they wanted to stop the exploit of putting stuff on the ah as storage at relatively unreasonable prices, since we dont need to fear losing a deposit if it doesnt sell, so just relist again and again. i exploited this heavily. i can understand that they put a stop to this unnatural usage, even thought that was my most favourite part abut the server (i mean who doesnt like to swim in gold without having to work hard for it)

what their other goals are, no idea

[Ezuba]

My thought for awhile is that they should just cap how many auctions each account lists. You can always make more accounts if you really want to list tons of items but would at least make it more difficult to list everything at absurd prices, list tons of single items, etc.

[Meownaa]

I don't have anything of worth to contribute to this topic, though I do have a question. Is the tax really that bad?

I have a bank alt that I sell low-level mats on. I usually sell them under market value – sometimes sharply under, depending on how common something is. (Looking at you, Pattern: Red Linen Robe.) I have noticed a sharp increase of prices to items I used to sell, basically, at vendor price, and I have upped my own prices as a result. However, I don't think my "profit margin" has really taken a hit because of it. If I'm making less money in the long run, I genuinely haven't noticed. I'm still earning what I like to consider a reasonable amount of profits.

Now, I should quality… the items I sell are, as stated, low-level mats, recipes, and so on. Copper Bars, Linen Cloth, Training Sword of the X, et cetera. So, that said, I may yet to have seen the "full effect" of this. But, it seems like as long as people are putting items up with the 10% tax and the "listing fee" in mind, there shouldn't really be a problem?

But, as I said, that's just me, a low-level vendor selling low-level items.

Thank you!
It's not "just me", you are a trader selling specific, low level stuff. Thank you for sharing your insights and your experience during the last week! I find it very interesting. Feel free to keep us up to date if something changes, too. :)

[Meownaa]

Before we decide whether deposits are good or not, or share our weird wacky ideas about how deposits might work, I feel like we need to answer a question that's not really defined anywhere:

What are deposits meant to accomplish in the first place?

What kind of behavior are they meant to stop?

What should they do? What should they not do?

Until we get that written down, we're just stumbling in the dark.

They were transparent. This was the answer we got when asking in General Channel on Discord. I posted it some days ago, but with this many messages it's easy to be overlooked.

"Jamey explained yesterday that “Item floods, abuse of AH and gold sinks are the main reasons for the change. However, we're discussing alternate ways and/or rates.” "

So there's the three main goals.
I have heard many people say they welcome it to combat extensive 1-item-listings and using the ah as a bank. Howevever, I can't remember a dev mentioning that anywhere. Feel free to add the information if you know more, but the quote is what the devs apparently had in mind.

[Whosthechicken]

"Jamey explained yesterday that “Item floods, abuse of AH and gold sinks are the main reasons for the change. However, we're discussing alternate ways and/or rates.” "

Let's go over those one by one, then.

- Do deposit costs prevent item floods?
No. You get the same deposit cost for doing 1 stack of 20 or 20 stacks of 1. If anything, deposits encourage you to make lots of small auctions, so at least some will sell. However, they do discourage you from posting too many total items*
*: Except For The Many Items That Don't Have Deposit Costs, Or The Many Items Where The Deposit Costs Are Marginal Compared To The Market Value Of The Item, And With The Side Effect Of Being Overly Penalizing For The Many Items Where Deposit Costs Are Too Big Compared To The Market Value Of The Item

- Do deposit costs prevent AH abuse?
Hard to say without defining what AH abuse is. There's obviously plenty of ways for you to manipulate the AH even with deposit costs, as most forms of AH manipulation were born in official WoW where there always were deposits. They do discourage some forms of abuse that require buying and relisting items to raise the price*, but only in the sense that they discourage use of the AH in general.
*: Except For The Many Items That Don't Have Deposit Costs, Or The Many Items Where The Deposit Costs Are Marginal Compared To The Market Value Of The Item, And With The Side Effect Of Being Overly Penalizing For The Many Items Where Deposit Costs Are Too Big Compared To The Market Value Of The Item

- Do deposit costs act as a gold sink?
Yes*, but the AH cut already accomplishes this in a much better way that's almost universally accepted. Not that inflation is a big concern for this server, which is currently undergoing reverse inflation from the constant influx of new players.
*: Except For The Many Items That Don't Have Deposit Costs, Or The Many Items Where The Deposit Costs Are Marginal Compared To The Market Value Of The Item, And With The Side Effect Of Being Overly Penalizing For The Many Items Where Deposit Costs Are Too Big Compared To The Market Value Of The Item

[Meownaa]

"Jamey explained yesterday that “Item floods, abuse of AH and gold sinks are the main reasons for the change. However, we're discussing alternate ways and/or rates.” "

Let's go over those one by one, then.

- Do deposit costs prevent item floods?
No. You get the same deposit cost for doing 1 stack of 20 or 20 stacks of 1. If anything, deposits encourage you to make lots of small auctions, so at least some will sell. However, they do discourage you from posting too many total items*
*: Except For The Many Items That Don't Have Deposit Costs, Or The Many Items Where The Deposit Costs Are Marginal Compared To The Market Value Of The Item, And With The Side Effect Of Being Overly Penalizing For The Many Items Where Deposit Costs Are Too Big Compared To The Market Value Of The Item

- Do deposit costs prevent AH abuse?
Hard to say without defining what AH abuse is. There's obviously plenty of ways for you to manipulate the AH even with deposit costs, as most forms of AH manipulation were born in official WoW where there always were deposits. They do discourage some forms of abuse that require buying and relisting items to raise the price*, but only in the sense that they discourage use of the AH in general.
*: Except For The Many Items That Don't Have Deposit Costs, Or The Many Items Where The Deposit Costs Are Marginal Compared To The Market Value Of The Item, And With The Side Effect Of Being Overly Penalizing For The Many Items Where Deposit Costs Are Too Big Compared To The Market Value Of The Item

- Do deposit costs act as a gold sink?
Yes*, but the AH cut already accomplishes this in a much better way that's almost universally accepted. Not that inflation is a big concern for this server, which is currently undergoing reverse inflation from the constant influx of new players.
*: Except For The Many Items That Don't Have Deposit Costs, Or The Many Items Where The Deposit Costs Are Marginal Compared To The Market Value Of The Item, And With The Side Effect Of Being Overly Penalizing For The Many Items Where Deposit Costs Are Too Big Compared To The Market Value Of The Item

This was exactly my takeaway.
My first post was *cough* a little lengthy, you summed it up nice and neat.
Especially the part about the 1-stack-items. I do not see a change, but I myself only put up 1-stack things now whereas I usually put up a few and the rest in bulk, which sold occasionally. Since occasionally doesn't work anymore, single items it is.

I do want to add that my overall impression is still that there are very few auctions. I am currently trading with people by talking, but this was much easier when there was an abundance in AH too, because you had a general value to orientate yourself. Now the prices for herbs jump a lot even in a single day depending when you're looking. Some might say this is part of the excitement and the few auctions are a good thing, to me a stable, predictable market is much more desirable.