Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Only AH Add-On Required

The Only Add-On You Will Ever Need

Your Brain.

Anyone who wants to learn to play the auction house in World of Warcraft can do it.  Some players think that add-ons are required.  Not a single add-on is required to be a lucrative auction house merchant.  Add-ons only make things easier.  If you are new and starting out on the auction house you don't have to download a single add-on.  In my opinion, you will get a much deeper and better understanding of the auction house if you do not use any add-ons at all. 

Granted, add-ons do make things much easier and faster, but they can also cause problems.  Some players will set up traps that are meant to trick the add-on and its autopricing.  Inexperienced auctioneers may fall for these devious traps and lose out on a lot of gold.

 In my opinion, add-ons should only be added to make tasks easier or more efficient.  I recommend building off of what you learn without add-ons, then add a few add-ons.  When you have grasped how those work, maybe add a few more as required.  Never let go of the knowledge you learn from playing the auction house, studying it, and manipulating it without the help of any add-ons.  When you can master the auction house with your brain power, you will exercise your mind and strengthen your ability to both analyze and comprehend. 

The number one add-on that you will need to use is your BRAIN. 

All of the data that an add-on creates is based off of the same information that your brain has access to by simply viewing the auction house and cross referencing the prices.  Add-ons can't tell you when it is time to bail out of a market or what item to stock up on for the next big patch.  An add-on won't be able to tell you whether to learn or flip that rare pattern.  Nor will it be able to decide which recipe to learn first.  Add-ons aren't required to be a successful auction house tycoon.  You will still be required to make many decisions in your auction house tradings.  So exercise your mind's power.

For The Record:  I use Postal, AnnounceIt, Auctioneer, and Gatherer.

7 comments:

  1. I concur with you on principle, but I do have one question.

    How do/would you set up auctions for Glyphs then? Since the market is pretty saturated on a lot of servers, the profits have to be made through large numbers with a few gold earned per sale. I can not see myself going through hundreds of glyphs with Appraiser once or twice per day, both from a time and concentration perspective.

    While I do still set up all other auctions manually (enchanting mats, trade goods, vanity stuff etc.), I really appreciate TSM for the bulk post feature based on material groups. To be fair, this feature shines the brightest when resupplying and selling glyphs though.

    While I could see it being similarly useful for selling gems, it would require setting up and maintaining too many groups for enchanting, blacksmithing, tailoring and leatherworking (or maybe I am doing it wrong).

    TL;DR: What method of posting would you recommend to people taking the high numbers and lots of diversity approach?

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  2. I don't think a market such as glyphs would be worthwhile without an addon - it would be too inefficient. You would probably be better served focusing on markets that are driven more through profit than volume. Chaos orb recipes, flipping epics, etc. You could still do well, you would just want to limit the amount of "administrative" time in your routine (posting, canceling, mail opening, etc.)

    One rebuttal I will throw out there as far as addons making you a better auctioneer is through their ability to sort, filter, and organize data. Addons that make information more accessible for you means that you waste less time processing the data, and more time analyzing/interpreting it.

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  3. @Apprentice Trade
    "What method of posting would you recommend to people taking the high numbers and lots of diversity approach?"

    Thats what I do myself. I don't use a posting add-on at all. What I am saying is that those aren't a requirement, just a luxury. If you are a new auctioneer, you should focus and understanding and learning how the auction house works, not worrying about add-ons, until you have a grasp of the auction house as a living breathing entity. Then start to look for add-ons to streamline what you are already doing based on your previous understanding and knowledge.

    @Kathroman
    Agreed. Again, if you are new and dowloand add-ons, who probably won't even understand how to analyze the data if you don't understand the market, the economy, and the cycles involved with the auction house.

    I have made plenty from the glyph market without using a single add-on to post for me. that was including back when the old auction house ui didn't allow the kind of fast posting that is allows now.

    Don't forget that the basic auction house UI has improved greatly since vanilla wow.

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  4. All very true, Cold. If you don't learn how to play the AH, an add-on won't be able to do it for you.

    Add-ons do have a leg up on your brain, though - they remember historical data pretty well. It's easy to forget the trends seen in markets I don't often watch.

    I got my start with Postal, OneBag, and Auctionator. Auctionator is very light, and I liked it because it cleaned up the AH interface. There weren't many 'automatic' features about it that could lead to mistakes - it just allowed me learn the AH a bit easier.

    Nowadays I use TradeSkill Master - but, I'm quasi-big-time now, and I did the leg work learning the AH and using my brain. Anybody can follow, but you have to think to lead.

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  5. Surely one does need some addons, but there are also markets than are accessible without them.

    For example, you could always sell BOE equipment without even using a single addon, though Auctionator makes it a bit easier and TSM / APM allow a more comfortable posting process.

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  6. It's obviously a solid principle. But it almost sounds like you're saying that people who use a bunch of add-ons forego the use of their brain. That's kind of moronic. Of course add-ons aren't required, but I can't help but believe add-ons are what helped me hit the cap. I'm pretty sure I would have lost interest in all the manual efforts to make that much gold manually, long before I got to 1 million.

    Yes, brain is required, but my brain tells me to use add-ons. Thank you, brain!

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