Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Silly tricks


NOTE: I was refereed to a great blog from Anaalius' blog called trading with zoxy. The post that was brought to my attention was about the addOn MySales. It's a great tool to keep track of your sales per character among other things. I highly recommend both the addOn and their blog.


A few tricks for you all today that will appeal to your inner troll. These are some things that you can pull while on your bankers and working the AH to really throw off the competition. Everything from the silly poke in the side to really driving your serious competitors crazy. I'm mentioning these things because they're all small little tools to get rid of those pesky AH campers and intruding goblins. As with the deep undercutting strategy the only way you can get rid of them is if they're either unable to compete or are too frustrated. Here's some ideas that can help with the latter.


1. Stay logged on until wow automatically disconnects you.
I do this every day and night and it's damned effective. After a while the campers will realize that you're not going to give up and rather than spam undercut you only for you to undercut by a few gold they wait until you log off. This will make them hang around for another 20 minutes or however long it takes before you're auto booted. This makes them spend a significant amount of extra time not making any money with no effort from you.


2. Cancel undercuts but don't repost until later
Same reasoning as above, but more to cause confusion. They'll start thinking that they've missed you or, if you're lucky, that you've given up for the day and they'll stop camping for the time being. Meanwhile you come back 20 minutes later and undercut them all.


3. Never post more than a set amount
This one is actually rather important. Personally I think it's wise to hide your stokpiles of goods and only show your muscle on the AH when it is necessary. For one, you want to blend in as "oh I'm just another nobody trying to get by in this harsh war torn world." But if people see that you're willing to sell a widget for 20g but see you listing them for 200 the next they'll be more inclined to wait and not pay top coin.


4. Do 2 cancel posts within an hour
This one is more to buy you some time as it won't last forever. But when there's a new player in town this will buy you some time to notice as they'll post after you log for the day or night and call it done. You do your normal cancel/post cycle as if nothing special is going on and log off then come back a bit later and do it again. Sort of the same as the first one but slightly different. After they pick up on this you can start doing a dance of who's going to do their auctions when trying to come in just before or just after somebody logs off.


5. Do you AH'ing right next to them at the exact same time
Now this one will definitely appeal to your inner troll and get you a few spiteful laughs if nothing else. I remember doing this several times in the JC market when somebody would come in with a few stacks of gems and try to get in on the market that I owned. I would sit and wait right next to them before I took my turn of doing a cancel/post and do little wave and hug emotes. Then say in /s channel that they were undercut by 20g. It's evil, I know.

(This one comes from Kemmler's comment below)
6. One trick I use that wasn't on your list is what I call the "10th slot alt". I roll, cancel and re-roll a 10th slot alt every few days. It only takes a minute to send him to SW. Then I can use my inventory through that alt to wage deep undercutting against the deep undercutters or bleed a few silver lower postings from my competition.

For the deep undercutters, they usually bite and undercut my alt so I can buy their stock with my main--just to add salt into the wound. The few silver below doesn't do anything but irritate them and create the illusion of more competition in a market than there really is. Gives them something else to think about.


Thanks for stopping by!

7 comments:

  1. Nice tips. I have done most of these but really like two: the "stay on till Blizz kicks me" and the "stand next to them and post/cancel/relist".

    I will try "two cancel re-posts in an hour". If I know I'm going to be playing for a couple hours I will do my cancels and not repost until after I've done some alt work but no reason I couldn't repost, do alt work for an hour and cycle again.

    One trick I use that wasn't on your list is what I call the "10th slot alt". I roll, cancel and re-roll a 10th slot alt every few days. It only takes a minute to send him to SW. Then I can use my inventory through that alt to wage deep undercutting against the deep undercutters or bleed a few silver lower postings from my competition.

    For the deep undercutters, they usually bite and undercut my alt so I can buy their stock with my main--just to add salt into the wound. The few silver below doesn't do anything but irritate them and create the illusion of more competition in a market than there really is. Gives them something else to think about.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi,

    I'm a daily reader here, but never reacted, and don't have my own blog...
    I have seen this MySales on a couple of blogs, but have also seen "Auction History Database" on this blog here:
    http://tippedcopper.blogspot.com/2011/01/blacksmithing-gold-guide.html

    Do you know anything more about that one? I haven't really had time to look at it yet, but it also looks quite interesting at first sigh.

    thanks for the great blog

    Xylaria

    ReplyDelete
  3. @ Kammler
    While the 10th alt as you call is can be a good strategy it's not a viable option for some people due to character slots and the extra effort. I know people that have used it to sort of eek their way out of an AH cease fire which is rather devious. I'll edit in a quote of your comment though has it is a viable option.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Stokpile
    Thanks, I realize that it may not be an option for everyone but many goblins have multiple AH toons; sometimes this will work, and that's the only reason I mentioned it.

    @anon
    Looking at the screenshot you submitted in the link, I think the addon is Auctioneer--the tab at the bottom is Beancounter, which will show the history of sales. It doesn't have as much versitility as MySales, but does show some good data.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The main reason that I like MS is one the command to open it brings out the nerd in me. The other is that it can get data from only a single toon which gives a great idea of your market if only handling one or two from that toon. However it did reset on my glyph banker which is a bit annoying so that's going to be a bit off for next week's report.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I know I'm coming in a few months late but...if you have two acts, the tenth slot rule is even easier when you can summon yourself to the city, if your guild has 'has group will travel'

    Yes. I'm that lazy. lol

    PS I suppose it would also work with a friend or guildy. But they'd get annoyed. I (would/will) use one of my raiding/crafting toons not in my bank alt's guild to pull me in while crafting/dailying

    ReplyDelete