The auction house of World of Warcraft is getting an update. Players will soon be able to offer whole stacks of items instead of individual units.
Those who check the auction house of World of Warcraft and want to buy large quantities of crafting materials should brace themselves for a long “adventure”. Many players list their materials not in stacks but in individual units. Blizzard now aims to counter this and create incentives for players to list items always in stacks.
Higher deposit per stack: Blizzard’s solution is to increase the deposit costs in the auction house to 20% of the sale price of a single unit. This would massively increase the deposit costs for individual units.
As a small example:
- If a player wants to sell a stack of 200 Tidespray Linen at a price of 10 gold each (so 2000 gold for the entire stack), they will pay an additional deposit of 2 gold (i.e., 20% of 10 gold for a single unit).
- If a player wants to sell 200 stacks of one Tidespray Linen for 10 gold, they will pay an additional deposit of 2 gold on each individual stack. For 200 auctions, that would be an additional 400 gold.
In both cases, the gold will be refunded if the auctions are successful – after all, it is just the deposit.
What does Blizzard hope to achieve with this? The developers hope to encourage players to offer larger stacks more frequently and not flood the auction house with “1-item stacks”. This should provide more clarity and less frustration for buyers in the auction house.
The changes will go live with the next server maintenance, which is on Wednesday, August 29, 2018.
A long-term solution is still coming: Blizzard is aware that these measures will only represent a short-term solution. A large part of the players uses addons to manage the auction house because Blizzard’s standard interface is inadequate. A major overhaul is planned in the coming months to bring the auction house up to current standards. However, there is no set date for this yet.
What do you think of these changes? A good idea to counter the many “1-item offers”? Or a step in the wrong direction?
