A warning to all players - IMPORTANT

[Scoops]

FYI this was legal in vanilla retail (if it was not done by botting)

[Makkar]

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[Makkar]

Manipulating AH shouldn't be an offense. If a person bought all lets say "iron ores" and sold his and
the bought ones for higher ones he isn't making an offense he is making an investment and is trying
to make a higher profit by inflating prices (being a goblin 101). It is only illegal if he bought it with gold that
he buyed from gold sellers. It is annoying but thats capitalism for you.

Sending items that allies can get cheap to their horde chars so they can sell it for more is manipulating
AH as well and it seems until rising an eyebrow to that sort of behaviour we are pointing finger at people
who are using their tricks against them.

Ofc bots should be banned but people (real people) who camp neutral AH to get good items for cheap can't
be blamed for anything. If you don't like it you should try to sell at later hours or get a friend on the other side
camp the AH.

[TheStreak]

Market manipulation is one of the many metas available to players in vanilla.

At it's simplest it is just looking on the auction house for a bargain. Something you know is worth more than the person that sold it thought ti was. Of maybe the seller simply wanted a guaranteed or quick sale... Either way there is no reasonable REQUIREMENT that everything you buy is to be used, consumed, or otherwise prevented from returning to the auction house.

If someone buys out all of a commodity then you either pay what they want, or go and farm your own, or wait for cheaper. It isn't that easy to manipulate auction house prices on commodities that are easily obtainable, and certainly not in the long run. Very quickly people cotton on and undercut you and attempt to ruin the little niche you just made for yourself.

The auction house is always a fire sale for that reason.

What drives prices up over time is the number of people with characters that aren't grinding what you are selling. Artificially inflating those prices takes some brains, not usually a great deal, but far more likely to cause that inflation is the use of auctioneer or similar tools.

If you think people shouldn't be ALLOWED to engage in *arbitrage*, and support their banning, then you shoukl support the wholesale bannage of any account linked to a program that helps track auction prices in game.

[Jeddite]

There is another auction house bot (logged on as of 11:30 Pacific)

Name is gÙrlplæse (Level 2 Human Female Rogue).

Put up a few semi-low value uncommon items -- BAM! purchased within seconds (before the auction could even be cancelled).

Low-level alts (of the non-bot persuasion) do not sit at the neutral AH at all hours -- curiously <AFK>, before you kill them a couple times -- furiously mashing [SEARCH] to look for the best deals in <5silver green items.

[Miv]

That's not me, but I started by taking stuff I could simply vendor, gotta start somewhere... Plus the easiest thing is to sort by lowest price and reaction buy as soon as you see something for really cheap (doesn't matter what the something is, on average you'll profit even if you make some mistakes). Now I only look for big ticket items (well did, I don't really play that much anymore) but occasionally I'll accidentally grab some garbage because someone is being annoying. But toggling AFK is the oldest trick in the book, that's hardly evidence of anything. And being low level is because most people are scared of using their real names or because people have started watching for them before transferring anything.

What I don't get is: Why do so many people think there's this magical AH bot? I haven't seen any evidence of one. Unless you have another person besides yourself ready to catch the item, you're probably going to lose if anyone is sniping.

[Mdmadam]

If its legit controlled players then its just good trolling. Think of it as a pirate or someone intercepting treasure you were trying to smuggle from one side to the other.

[Logon]

Guys, you gotta remember that vanilla addons does not require any hardware events to buy out auctions... Which means that as long as someone tabs in each 15 minutes to jump you can have a addon searching the AH and buying stuff auto. This is a very gray area as it isn't acually a bot. (Uses the same system auctioneer uses)

[Ylly]

There is another auction house bot (logged on as of 11:30 Pacific)

Name is gÙrlplæse (Level 2 Human Female Rogue).

Put up a few semi-low value uncommon items -- BAM! purchased within seconds (before the auction could even be cancelled).

Low-level alts (of the non-bot persuasion) do not sit at the neutral AH at all hours -- curiously <AFK>, before you kill them a couple times -- furiously mashing [SEARCH] to look for the best deals in <5silver green items.

Ya, i can confirm this... just happened, same char, instant buyout.


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Another one might be "Tassar" lvl49 rogue, guild <Frostwolf Clan>
(hard to say if he's just lucky or botting.. ~'~)


~~...haven't even heard of these things existing..gtb careful now :p //\\ thx4thread


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I lost a shadowfang

D'oh :/ *_* : )~~