A warning to all players - IMPORTANT

[mynamewastaken]

nostradamus quality

[irri]

You may need to define "instantly".

In my younger days on retail, I did a fair bit of neutral AH camping and also made a lot of gold by moving items across factions. Are the neutrals only in booty bay on this version?

On retail, with multiple accounts, and multiple clients open, you can monitor all of the neutral auction houses simultaneously while playing the game in your main client. as you see a potential target, you might need to log some characters off or make them a little less suspicious, and snipe the auction from one of the other neutrals. Typically this is easily done by setting gear quality thresholds and then sorting via buyout price - although typically there is very few items of higher qualities on the neutral AH. Spamming the search button all you need to really do is notice a change in the items listed - the actual item is usually pretty obvious and usually very cheap. I made a serious amount of gold doing this - epic gems, epic boe's, large amounts of matts etc. I even managed to pick up a wrath engineer crafted motorbike for 1c.

I have also been on the other side of the equation. I have made alot of gold by moving items across faction - especially when guild banks are available by comparing items like epic boe's on both AH's, finding ones that aren't availalbe on your side but are available on the other faction, announcing WTS's in trade and then buying/transferring the item to that character by the time the buyer opens trade. I have also made alot of gold just by finding discrepencies in matt pricing across factions and just moving bulk product - the person i bought it off is happy I bought it, the person i sold it to is happy they got it cheaper and i get to make a cut in the middle.

However, this comes at a risk - the neutral AH's aren't your own personal inter-faction mailboxes, they are auction houses. As a sniper, when people would qq about me buying their auction, i would ask them why they put an auction up for a price that they weren't happy to sell the item at. Depending on how nice the person and what object i got, i would sometimes ransom the item back to them.

If you are clever about it you certainly can buy the item faster than the sniper, but you need to be clever about it. While i'm not going to detail everything I do to minimise risk, I will let you in on a couple:

Things that are posted on neutral AH's for 1c will get bought quick.
It is easy to snipe faction transferring when there are few items on the NAH.
If there is no one at any NAH, you are unlikely to get sniped.
You are less likely to loose items when they are posted one at a time.

I have made a lot of gold on retail by sniping other peoples auctions and lost a bit in the process of making even more by mule-ing goods between factions. At no point when i lost items did i think it was a botter, it was either a case of being lazy or being slow. moving items between factions is risky, but the payoff over time usually far exceeds any losses.

The crux of the OP's issue sniping vs botting. I can tell you from experience, it is easy to buy an item <1 second after the item has been posted. However, the sniper is at a disadvantage as they don't know what the item isand the time it is posted, so they have to notice it, react to it, then make a judgement over whether it is a good buy (buying lvl5 greens for >1g would not be a good buy). If this a botter and not just a clever player, the item would need to be sold in something like <250ms after the item is posted. Anything longer than that is encroaching on a timeframe that a legitimate player could achieve.

[Ourk]

The crux of the OP's issue sniping vs botting.

Legitbuyer and Yadungoofed were banned the day after the OP's ticket. I think GMs studied their case and made their decisions.

With the other guys involved, the decision could not be the same, depending of sniping or botting.

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But you re right and i agree with you entire text (even if, personnaly, i could not act like this kind of "sniping" players you describe because, doing this, i know for a fact that i will bother another player).

[Miv]

(even if, personnaly, i could not act like this kind of "sniping" players you describe because, doing this, i know for a fact that i will bother another player).

The thing you need to realize is that just because it bothers another player doesn't make it a bad thing. It bothers another player if they don't make it into a dungeon party, or if you tag a mob they were going for, or if you charge too much for an item they want. The game wasn't designed for easy transfer between horde and alliance. You either need to pay for security (no 1c/1s etc transactions) or be super on the ball (gank, be prepared, have a buddy be the buyer, etc). If it was supposed to be easy they would allow you to just mail directly between horde and alliance.

[Alexpulos]

So.... If i go and put up a bunch of lvl 29 greens to twink my lvl 29... These dickheads insta buy them lol? Sounds kind of hillarious you can make extra cash off these pricks. However is this a bannable offense marking up greens to screw them over?

[Alexpulos]

So.... If i go and put up a bunch of lvl 29 greens to twink my lvl 29... These dickheads insta buy them lol? Sounds kind of hillarious you can make extra cash off these pricks. However is this a bannable offense marking up greens to screw them over?

[irri]

I would be very surprised to find that posting an item for sale on an auction house - even at overly inflated prices - would be banable except in 2 contexts - gold buying and market manipulation.

Having a piece of linen sell for 1000g is probably going to make some moderators suspicious of potential gold buying and flag a need for investigation.

Manipulating the auction houses by buying everything and reposting at ridiculous prices could possibly be banable. With a player base measuring in the multiple thousands though I think that even if someone can amass enough capital to attempt such a thing, market supply is going to undercut them pretty quickly making it unlikely to be profitable anyway, unless the market is well targeted which would probably mean the impact would be small and thus not concern the mods much anyway.

Having said that, I haven't read the TOS or whatever but I assume there will be a line somewhere that says something like "you agree that we can ban anyone at any time for any reason or without giving a reason", although being a service you are getting for free I would be surprised if they even have a TOS. I find it difficult to imagine there would be anything even approximating a contractual agreement which means the mods probably have zero barriers to banning who they want to whenever they want to anyway.

[Miv]

> "you agree that we can ban anyone at any time for any reason or without giving a reason".

I don't believe they actually have that in their ToS.

>Manipulating the auction houses by buying everything and reposting at ridiculous prices could possibly be banable. With a player base measuring in the multiple thousands though I think that even if someone can amass enough capital to attempt such a thing

Someone did that with Fused Wiring this morning, it's quite annoying... they doubled the price on it. As far as banable, I don't think there is anything in the server rules against it. Seems like it would be hard to enforce though.

[Ourk]

I dont contest the sniping part of the game as it involves human behavior: its the game and i m fine with it as im fine with the fact that in a community, there are faggs and very nice people. i just contest a player using a third party prog which allow him even not to be in front of this keyboard to do some things.

The thing you need to realize is that just because it bothers another player doesn't make it a bad thing. [...] The game wasn't designed for easy transfer between horde and alliance.

I dont care if a thing is designed to be easy or difficult. I am a person who can make his own choices with my own mind and my own brain regardless of whether things have been designated/written to be easy or difficult: so, i repeat, i cannot act like this kind of "sniping" players you describe because, doing this, i know for a fact that i will bother another player. And i m not here in order to bother other players.

[mynamewastaken]

still happening !!!!!!!!! ((

someone just stole 2 golden pearls and my enchanting rod i wanted to trade for a better life