PTR Global Auction House coming in 9.2.7

[Kethcup]

https://www.mmo-champion.com/content/10664-Patch-9-2-7-PTR-Build-44444

Essentially, instead of each server having an auction house, the whole region (US West, US East, Oceania, etc) shares "commodities." Now they've stated that Weapons and Armor specifically won't be shared (rip easy iLvl 28 gearing), but gems, crafting mats, and flasks will be.

 

[BANKONE]

Only a matter of time then for armor/weapons!

 

[Chops]

Very excited for 1 person to corner the global market on twink mats. Gonna be very cool.

 

[Kirise]

That's really huge. Not for what it does for commodities (although that's nice), but the implications behind the change.

Blizzard already effectively merged certain realms, and mailing BoA gear long since showed cross-connection capabilities. The recent change to mailboxes i.e. now we can mail items cross-faction to alts, showed Blizzard lifting even more restrictions on the flow of goods. These are important quality of life changes to how WoW works.

For Blizzard to effectively make certain AH categories region-wide, paves the way (as @BANKONE said) for other categories to open up. Blizzard is betting the WoW population can respond to supply and demand changes insofar as commodities go, and once they confirm that to be true, Blizzard can look at the rest of the AH.

Blizzard is betting hard on returning professions to Wrath-level interest when Dragonflight launches i.e. you keep some well known experts on your friends list for when you need certain goods. A region-wide AH system stabilizes the economy for all servers, and makes server choice less economically impactful for new players.

But why? Why put time and effort into something that won't make much of an impact to WoW's current playerbase? Because (forgive me for banging this speculative drum again) WoW is coming to consoles, and Blizzard is cleaning up the house in preparation for welcoming a wave of new players. If Blizzard is going to keep those players engaged, Blizzard needs to hone down the inconsistencies of the game to an acceptable level.

 

[Selaya]

wait, why does this feel like totally ass-backwards to me?
if any, you'd want to do it the reverse (keep commodities locally restricted so theres an incentive to like corner the market while making the rarer, possibly unique stuff global to improve availability)

 

[toskosa]

on the one hand I can now buy mats even on dead servers....on the other hand they will now cost 8 trillion gold and will all be sold by banktoonqtxx

 

[Goohd]

Very excited for 1 person to corner the global market on twink mats. Gonna be very cool.

Tgod *cough* Tgod *cough*

 

[Ivo]

wait, why does this feel like totally ass-backwards to me?
if any, you'd want to do it the reverse (keep commodities locally restricted so theres an incentive to like corner the market while making the rarer, possibly unique stuff global to improve availability)

Because equippables are needed by high end raiders. If market is free for all, blizz will lose money from transfers. And they do transfer a lot. Also this helps lower realms with mats drought.

 

[Iild]

ah yes blizzard will surely miss the ~1500 dollars the 40 high end raiders provide them on a tier release, if they actually used dollars and not blizzard balance that is

 

[Chops]

tbf blizz has been moving away from the idea of isolated realms forever and this is just one more step in that direction.

 

[icehawk]

It’s potentially paving the way for NFT’s to be introduced.
They will have an instant market with millions of buyers when they start introducing real $ values on items - possibly when weapons and armor come on board.
Just my thoughts, but they could be preparing to transition to NFTs.
That’s my conspiracy theory.

 

[Kirise]

wait, why does this feel like totally ass-backwards to me?
if any, you'd want to do it the reverse (keep commodities locally restricted so theres an incentive to like corner the market while making the rarer, possibly unique stuff global to improve availability)

The supply and demand of the rarer and unique stuff won't change. That market transcends servers, and merging server AHs won't help with the scarcity of those items. But everyone benefits from a commodities market that's too large for one player or even a cartel of players to corner. Black lotus goes up? All it takes is three players across North America to spend an afternoon farming in Silithus, and the market drops again.

 

[Selaya]

no market is too large for that, trust me.

 

[Purj]

Just open it all the way up. At this point servers are just different phases of the same shit anyway.

 

[Robo]

Just open it all the way up. At this point servers are just different phases of the same shit anyway.

Servers will only be useful for character/guild name availability at some point

 

[Goesid]

Servers will only be useful for character/guild name availability at some point

edit: so will China be able to sell us Swift Spectral Tigers? lmao. I remember they got them for that gametime upgrade promotion.

https://tbc.wowhead.com/news/chines...er-mount-for-six-month-subscription-in-325732

chinese wow is like a franchise, its not blizzard running it so they do kinda whatever they want.

 

[Robo]

chinese wow is like a franchise, its not blizzard running it so they do kinda whatever they want.

Yeah I also forgot the mount is different. It's called "swift ghost tiger", and it's BoP. Seems like Chinese WoW is basically an official private server

 

[ZenwØw]

https://www.mmo-champion.com/content/10664-Patch-9-2-7-PTR-Build-44444

Essentially, instead of each server having an auction house, the whole region (US West, US East, Oceania, etc) shares "commodities." Now they've stated that Weapons and Armor specifically won't be shared (rip easy iLvl 28 gearing), but gems, crafting mats, and flasks will be.

Yummy !