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The Undermine Journal to close
There is sad news in the WoW community today. The longtime, invaluable auction house resource The Undermine Journal will be closing its doors at the end of July. The Journal cites ballooning server hosting costs as the culprit, and they just can't keep up. Since 2010, The Undermine Journal has been the place to go if you wanted to stay on top of auction house pricing--particularly for comparisons across different servers. The loss of this site is huge blow WoW players as a whole, but particularly for those who make a dedicated hobby out of playing the auction house. There does remain some hope for The Journal's future, however. If they can find a new server host, it's possible that a revamped Undermine Journal will make an appearance in time for Warlords of Draenor. However, in their news announcement, they caution that if the expansion's launch comes and goes without The Undermine Journal's reappearance, it will likely be gone for good. They will do their best to keep a webpage in place in order to deliver updates on the situation. From those of us at WoW Insider, we'd like to thank Erorus, the creator behind The Undermine Journal, for all his hard work and dedication to maintaining such a wonderful resource. We hope The Undermine Journal's absence is just a hiatus, but either way, we'll see you at Realm Pop.
The players and the auction house
Like many, if not most, players, I regularly use the auction house to buy and sell items that I need or want in WoW. And, like many players, I regularly experience frustration in doing so -- either I can't find what I want and/or it's exorbitantly expensive, or I can't sell what I'm trying to get rid of! I'm not sure which scenario I'd rank as more annoying -- not being able to buy what I want versus not being able to sell what I want -- but I find the latter to be exasperating in a particular way, especially if I know that what I'm selling is something useful. I admit it: I get really frustrated when things I want to sell don't sell. Relisting is annoying, and if I'm trying to sell an item, it's because I neither need nor want it, so carrying it around isn't something I feel inclined to do. Part of it is wanting to make gold -- who doesn't, after all -- but in addition, those bag slots are space I need for other things that I don't want to sell, like transmog gear. Hence, I am forced to admit that I can sometimes be one of the people that player Kidja complains about in this forum post. If I can't get a buyer on the AH for something at the price I think it deserves, I will sell it for as under-market as I dare simply to get the goods moving.
How 5 minutes AFK cost one WoW player 476,000 gold
We've all been there: leaving World of Warcraft running on our computers while we've run off to grab a soda or take a bio break. However, most of us return to find our characters safe and sound just as we left them. Not so for WoW-player 1104, who returned to his desk to find that most of his 476,000 gold was missing in action. The culprit? His 6-year-old son, who went on a pet shopping spree, picking up the rarest -- and priciest -- pets on the auction house. It could have been worse, of course: clearing out gold isn't nearly as bad as clearing out a real life bank account, as kids have done accidentally with in-app purchases in mobile games. But still, getting half-way to the gold cap is nothing to sneeze at -- it represents a lot of time and effort, if nothing else. So what's a WoW-playing parent to do? 1104 couldn't really blame his son, but does think this might be a sign that it's time to walk away from WoW. On the flip side, he could also take up pet collecting: he's bound to be off to a great start!
How to make gold without breaking (much of) a sweat
Making money in World of Warcraft can be a drag, requiring boring grinding or spending tedious hours watching price fluctuations in the auction house. And, while there's tons of advice out there on how WoW players can make piles of gold, it tends to be more involved than my attention span allows. (Though if your attention span does allow, you should go for it!) This is, after all, a game I am supposedly playing for fun: spending my fun time farming leather turns it into not fun time pretty quickly. However, fortunately for me (and those like me), you can turn a decent profit in WoW without jumping through many hoops -- even at low levels. All it takes is paying attention to the loot you find and following a few general guidelines, and you can make enough gold to buy (almost) anything you want as you level your way to greatness. Sound too good to be true? It's really not. So if you're a new character or rolling on a new server and want to be sure you have the gold to buy anything you might need on the trip to level 90, read on! (If you're already at max level, you may find a few useful tips here, but Gold Capped caters more to end-game players.)
Seven things every newbie needs to know
While plenty of old hats might say the WoW newbie experience is easy mode now, I'd call it streamlined: rolling a new character or leveling an existing one has never been more straightforward. Gone are the days when you had to pull up Wowhead (or download an addon) to figure out every other quest, the days when you kill dozens of monsters for a single quest drop, the days when you had to run through high level zones to collect flight paths. If you don't remember having to run from across the Wetlands to pick up the Menethil Harbor flight path -- dying more than once along the way -- count yourself lucky, because those corpse runs were decidedly un-fun. However, even in this golden age of newbiedom, there are some aspects of the game that just aren't explained very well. So, whether you're brand new to the game or, like me, returning after an absence, here are a few things every newbie needs to know.
Gold Capped: Relentless markdown wars
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! I got an email from someone recently about a new competitor. I have recently returned to the blacksmithing armor and belt buckles market. When I researched my old stomping ground, I found that materials cost has increased, profits are almost non-existent, and competition was rampant! I didn't let that get me down, however. I watched the market, checked the reference data, got a good handle on the situation, then when the time was right, made my move! Competition dropped like flies, profits rose, and life was grand. Then one day, I got a new big-wig competitor.
The Lawbringer: Q&A on Diablo's real-money auction house
Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play? Since Blizzard dropped the Diablo 3 bombshell on us early Monday, I will post the second article in my series on micro-transaction models next week. For those of you who have been living under the proverbial internet rock (you are missing some awesome memes right now), Blizzard announced that Diablo 3 would feature two auction houses, one using in-game gold as currency and the other using real currency that would be deposited into a Battle.net account wallet and used from there. The whole system gets more intriguing when you take into account that sales made on the real-money auction house can make their way to your own very real wallet through an unannounced third party or deposited back into your Battle.net wallet for use on anything digital in the Blizzard store, including WoW game time. If you're a regular reader of The Lawbringer, you already know how excited I get over virtual currency. This is my wheelhouse. I feel like a master carpenter at Wood Con 2011, cosplaying as my favorite oak tree, quercus alnifolia. Pair that with real currency, and excitement levels hit the stratosphere. I may break through the atmosphere at some point. That faint sonic boom you hear will be me hurtling through the air in excitement and wonderment. Sure, the Diablo real-money transaction (RMT) auction house is not related to World of Warcraft -- or is it? Oh, it very much is. Faithful readers and not faithful alike (how could you, Debbie?) have been writing in questions via Twitter and email asking me to explain the auction house and talk about some of the potential legal and tax issues that could come around because of it. Also, many people want to know how the RMT auction house could benefit World of Warcraft, despite Rob Pardo's saying there are no plans to bring it over to WoW. Let's take a look at your questions.
Gold Capped: When glyph prices hit the wall
Every week, Gold Capped brings you tips on how to make money on the auction house. This article from inscription specialist Steve Zamboni has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. Imagine a typical glyph market on a busy realm: dozens of goblins sitting hunched over their steam calculators surrounding the trading pit, each figuring their costs and profits down to the last copper trying to gain an advantage over the others. Thousands of glyphs are posted every hour, most to be canceled and reposted an hour later at even lower prices. Eventually, one of the goblins has a flash of brilliance (or cracks under the strain; the records aren't clear) and posts all of his glyphs at a loss. The calculation engines grind to a stop, leaving the goblins to stare up at the big board in silence, then at each other. "Now what?" We call it the wall. One scribe picks a price and tries to hold the entire market to that price. If it holds, the market stops at the wall, and everyone on the other side watches helplessly as sales drop to zero. Sometimes it's done to drive off competitors; sometimes it's done to dissuade new competitors from entering the market, or just to burn up excess ink supplies ... or even just out of boredom to cause pointless drama, goblin style. Like all good goblin inventions, the wall appears simple on the outside, but remains complicated (and somewhat explosive) when put into practice. One complication is that there is more actually more than one type of wall.
Gold Capped: WoW Prospector and mailbag
Every week, Gold Capped (from Basil "Euripides" Berntsen) aims to educate players about how to make money on the auction house. For the inside line on crafting for disenchanting, transmutation, cross-faction arbitrage and more, check in every Wednesday. Also, feel free to email Basil any comments, questions or hate mail, as well as check out the long awaited 11th episode of Call to Auction! I got an email from the creator of WoW Prospector asking me to cover it. After he assured me that his servers are housed in a fire proof room lined with asbestos and at least 300 meters from any residential zones, I agreed, mainly because it's an incredibly useful tool that has saved me a bunch of spreadsheet time. Essentially, the tool will tell you how much money you stand to make prospecting various ores, given the price of ore and what you can sell the raw gems for. Here's a screenshot of it in action:
Blizzard announces upcoming premium AH through Armory feature
It's fairly common knowledge that Blizzard has kept updating the Armory with new features and new apps. Now, Bornakk comes forth with news of an app that will be to the armory what a giant Steve Allen pog was to pogs: behold, the ultimate feature! In the glorious future, we'll be able to work our auctions from the Armory itself or apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. Yes, one more step closer to actually living full time in Azeroth. I have my eyes on a nice cottage outside of Elwynn, myself. In all seriousness, I know a lot of people who would probably club me over the head and hand me over to a cabal of secretive necromancers for this feature. No news yet on exactly how it's going to work, and Bornakk does point out that with the amount of work it will be to develop, you're probably going to have to pay extra for it. This is a fairly complex service to develop, due in large part to its unprecedented integration with the game, so we don't have an exact release date yet. It's important to note here that certain elements of the service will be premium-based, which we'll go into more detail on once the service functionality is finalized. As with all of the services we offer, we plan to integrate the Auction House and Armory in a way that won't disrupt the gameplay experience, and we won't release it until it meets the quality standards that we've set for our other features and services.See the rest of the announcement after the break.
Auction houses broken across Azeroth
Many users have been reporting tonight problems at the auction houses across Azeroth. Those people experiencing the issue are finding that nothing is listed in the AH, or all of their items are gone without a trace. This problem has been going on for about six hours, and only appears to be affecting US realms. Zorayn has posted that Blizzard is aware of the problem and their network technicians are working towards fixing it. So sit back, have a glass of wine, and enjoy your Saturday night. Try not to use the AH, because finding all your stuff gone wouldn't be cool (you'll get it back though, I'm sure, if it is gone, one way or another). We'll update this post when a resolution is announced. Update: Rolling restarts are being issued to correct the problem. For servers which have been restarted, the issue appears corrected. The opening announcement on the loading screen makes note to say that no items will have been lost during this AH outage.
Forum Post of the Day: Auction houses go faction neutral
Mileiamh has posted an idea for an auction house revamp in the official WoW suggestions forums. Because neutral auction houses are located in neutral towns, and are therefore not frequently used, Mileiamh suggests that Blizzard could place faction neutral auction houses in "each of the pre-BC auction houses". He posits that these new additions would "solve bad econom(ie)s on low pop servers" and eliminate the "need for opposite faction auction house alts". Furthermore, Mileiamh reasons that these auction houses would "likely supersede the old auction house" and therefore, could "replace [them] completely". Seeing "no drawbacks", he seems excited at the prospect that the "items available to both factions" would be "greatly expand[ed]". Taking the neutral auction houses as proof that "[B]lizzard seem[s] to have no problem with horde and alliance selling things to each other", Mileiamh invites everyone for further discussion. What potential benefits and drawbacks could other players point out?
