In World of Warcraft, some players criticized that the auction house had suddenly become slower. This was apparently intentional: Blizzard wants to combat unfair advantages.
This is the problem: Several players in the official WoW forum reported a noticeably slower auction house. These players, according to their own statements in the forum, used addons like TradeSkillMaster (TSM) to quickly perform numerous transactions in the auction house.
The TradeSkillMaster is a powerful addon that allows for quickly farming gold in WoW. However, this is now noticeably slower – and it is not a bug, as some players initially thought.
The auction house now has an action budget
This is what Blizzard says: In a forum post about the issue, Community Manager Kaivax explains that a new hotfix was implemented, which has led to this slowdown.
With this, they aim to slow down constant traders in the auction house. There is “an imbalance between the vast majority and a very small minority of players,” explains Kaivax. This small minority accounts for the majority of the activity in the auction house.
These are players who use automated processes through addons to create “an economic competitive advantage over other players.” Additionally, this behavior burdens the performance of the game.
This is Blizzard’s solution: Through the hotfix, all players effectively receive a budget of auction house actions per minute. The slowdown kicks in when this is exceeded.
This budget is designed in such a way that it does not affect players who use the auction house within a normal scope. “For most players, it should be virtually impossible to reach the new limits,” explains Kaivax. However, it is the players who execute quick queries with addons and buy and sell large quantities of items who will be throttled.
They are now waiting for feedback: Should the rules prove to be too strict, a relaxation is conceivable.
If you are not too upset about the slowed auction house, you can already look forward to WoW: Shadowlands. Some already deceased characters will make a comeback there.
