Manipulating the Neutral Auction Houses on PVE realms
It seems like most WoW players rarely use the faction-neutral Goblin auction houses, perhaps largely because the high fees associated with selling items and that most items are available in each faction’s auction house. Why bother?
Many players on Regular and RP servers know what the purpose of the Goblin auction houses are, however – transferring gold and items to your cross-faction characters. Because you are allowed to have both Horde and Alliance characters on non-PVP realms, it’s an easy way to deck out your new toon when if you decide to roll an alt that doesn’t share your main’s faction.
Chances are you already knew that and are wondering what the point of this post is. Simple – as a cut-throat master auctioneer it is your job to take advantage of that situation and make a financial killing.
In essence what you will do is stay at one of the Goblin auction houses and keep your eyes peeled for these deals. Sound boring? It is – but the thrill of finding, for instance, a Staff of Jordan for 10 copper is, uhh, thrilling.
I like to call this manoeuver “Bad Will Hunting” because it is very much like hunting – long periods of boredom followed by frenetic button pushing (and by engaging in this auction house warfare is certainly not going to earn you any friends).
The frenetic button pushing comes into play because once you zero in on a deal you must move with great haste. Often the person that posts the auction will only leave it up for a minute at most – just enough time to log into a different account to purchase the item. Often these deals are only up for the few seconds it takes a friend or guildmate to hit the Buyout button. You really need some quick fingers to snag most of these.
Obviously this strategy isn’t for everyone, being a preferred side-game for some of the more hardened auction house warriors in Azeroth. This is more of a side game for those inclined to gamble, though you are not gambling money or gold – just your time and patience. And like gambling the score can be enormous, but more likely you will walk away with just a fair bit of extra cash and a lot of satisfaction.
Now while you can play this game with nothing more than the default WoW UI and your willpower, I would HIGHLY suggest using BottomScanner (part of Norganna’s legendary Auctioneer addons suite). This addon scans the auction house from the end (bottom) of the list up, meaning you will see the newest auctions first. It is also highly configurable, so that you are immediately notified during the scan of any auctions that fall within your criteria. Keeping Bottom Scanner scanning is the key to streamlining your interception of cross-faction goods.
I mentioned earlier that engaging in this tactic will not earn you friends – far from it. It will likely earn you threats, possibly harrassment and certainly you will be reported to GMs. However, this is not considered scamming and Blizzard representatives will not punish you for it. Think about it – you are not deceiving anyone, nor are you stealing anything. You are merely taking advantage of a good situation – like that bear who knows to hang around the river when the salmon start swimming upstream. And I have been personally told by players who were on the unlucky end of this tactic that Blizzard refused to take action on the issue.
So whip out your Bottom Scanners, Auctioneers, it’s time to separate the auction house guerilla warriors from the casual wimps – and separate a lot of gold from the pockets of cross-faction traders.
I was thinking about that too while transfering some cash to my new alt on a rp server…
but it’s really really lame, if you do that you deserve to be hacked and locked for a months while blizzard investigates your account xD
If you are thinking about cross faction transfers, it takes two different accounts to make it happen. If you want to transfer cash, it’s easy, you just have your poor toon post a light feather for 1k gold and buy it out with your rich toon. Cash transferred!
If you want to transfer an item, then it’s a bit more complex to prevent this from being used against you. First, transfer 5 times the market value of the item to the poor toon using the above method. Then, list the item for 5 times the market value. If someone doesn’t buy it out, simply buy it with your poor (now temporarily rich) toon. If someone does buy it out, at least you made 5X the market value off it.
Another great use for the Neutral AH is selling faction specific recipes, pets, and items. Deviate scale anythings usually sell better on the Neutral AH than on the Horde AH. In fact, I’ve made some nice coin by buying Deviate stuff off the Horde AH and posting it for a profit on the Neutral AH.
Ehhh I actually found 150 or so thorium ores in the neutral ah and instinctively bought em out for 10 copper but being the nice guy I am I gave ‘em back. I do make money off the ah from noobs listing undervalued items and I will feast on ignorance but this was just plain wrong.
to guy 2 posts above:
- use 2 different computers so it’s a matter of 3 seconds
- run 2 wow instances in windowed mode and switch window
you must be quick and there’s a risk but the profits involved are usually huge
Is there a way to get auctioneer to compare the neutral AH to your home faction?
haha, that’s such a great idea. The only reason it’s a good idea is because anyone who has a clue can do it like Daxenos suggested. Anyone who posts an epic item for drastically under-market prices, even for just a minute, has to understand the risk they’re taking. That doesn’t mean they won’t be upset at you, but like you said, you’re not deceiving anyone, just taking advantage of a unique opportunity. I generally ignore neutral AH unless I need a horde-specific item on an ally character or vice versa, but I might have to start paying a little more attention
I probably wouldn’t utilize this method, except like Sygvox said, they have to know the risk they’re taking. I won’t use this all the time, but yea, if you see a Forsaken in one of the Auction Houses, be careful. XD
“NINJA!” “What?” “I was going to kill that!” “Ooh look, an epic.” “I hate you.” ~Possible future scenario.
If you’re trying to do a cross-faction transfer and want to avoid losing your items to bottom-feeders, here’s a strategy that should work:
Instead of underpricing the item, OVER price it. Then, after the transfer is complete, have the buyer list a junk item for the same price and buy it from them.
Two caveats:
1.) You will spend more gold for listing fees this way. It may be worth it as insurance against losing your item in the auction house.
2.) You have to have a lot of gold on hand.
Otherwise, it makes for a useful system.
If you were going to transfer items, why not spend a little extra time transferring gold first and then buy the items back at a price no one would buyout. (Even then you profit anyway at slightly more time, assuming that item was in the AH before you started.)