WoW Improvements

[Ironwood]

I posted this on the WoW Boards.  Of course, no one will care.  And, yes, I'm aware that there are things broken before we add other stuff.  I just can't get these ideas out of my head.




1 - Gadgetzan is broken. It's supposed to be 'Bartertown' in Warcraft - a neutral port where Horde and Alliance can shed differences and trade with each other. It does this using an auction house both factions can access.
However, it doesn't work at present and is woefully underused.
The solution is simple - at the moment the AH's have a tick box for short, long and very long trades. My proposal would be to put in another tick called 'Shared Auction' or something, which automatically posts your Auction to the Gadgetzan AH AS WELL. This will, obviously, cost more but the benefits are many : Alliance and Horde will be trading, which was the purpose of the Gadgetzan AH, people will find a bigger market for their stuff as well as getting more stuff seen. Finally, and most importantly, you will only be able to see the shared auctions of the opposing side at the Gadgetzan auction itself. Suddenly, we have a booming trade town with REAL MEANING.


2 - Rogue Lockboxes. Currently a very, very, very stupid way for us to skillup. Lockboxes in the middle of nowhere that give no loot. Stupid. What I propose is another NPC in the auction houses : Call him 'Jimmy the Fence'. What will happen is those people who loot lockboxes from mobs will go to Jimmy and pay him a small fee (based on the value of the box) and he will 'collect' all the lockboxes. At any time, a rogue can go to Jimmy, browse the lockboxes and be PAID the small fee to open them. At this point, Jimmy then mails the unlocked (but not opened) lockbox back to the client so that they can have their loot. In this way we have a common sense skillup system, a reward for rogues and we have less people 'looking' for rogues to open boxes randomly. Obviously, for this to work I would imagine that the removal of the current lockboxes and the increasing rate of lockbox drops from mobs across the board. I think this would add a lot of fun to the system too.

[SurfD]

1: No one really uses Gadget for much other then traiding Paladin/Shaman set items between factions, and the odd Allaince/Horde only Crafting Patterns.  That, and the fact that Gadgetzan charges an outrageous useage fee on each transaction is what kills it for most people.

2: Count me as one of the few people who do not believe that rogues need yet ANOTHER easy source of cash in the form of guaranteed payment for opening boxes.  You already get enough stuff from pickpocket, and really, it would be WAY too imbalancing to put stuff in the scattered lockboxes (hell, I walked up and down the shore of ashenvale the other day looking for Stranglekelp and must have seen at LEAST 10 or more of those Waterlogged Footlockers.)  Maybe what you need is a vendor that sells practice locks or something.

[Trippy]

1 - Gadgetzan is broken.
[...]
My proposal would be to put in another tick called 'Shared Auction' or something, which automatically posts your Auction to the Gadgetzan AH AS WELL. This will, obviously, cost more but the benefits are many : Alliance and Horde will be trading, which was the purpose of the Gadgetzan AH, people will find a bigger market for their stuff as well as getting more stuff seen. Finally, and most importantly, you will only be able to see the shared auctions of the opposing side at the Gadgetzan auction itself. Suddenly, we have a booming trade town with REAL MEANING.

That only partially solves half the problem which is placing bids there though with your method the AH will quickly fill up with crap items. You still have to travel there to buy stuff which is a pain and since there's no proxy bidding (which is something the AH's should've had from the very beginning) you either have to camp there full time to ensure you get want you want or let the gold sellers buy up all the interesting items.

2 - Rogue Lockboxes. Currently a very, very, very stupid way for us to skillup. Lockboxes in the middle of nowhere that give no loot. Stupid. What I propose is another NPC in the auction houses : Call him 'Jimmy the Fence'. What will happen is those people who loot lockboxes from mobs will go to Jimmy and pay him a small fee (based on the value of the box) and he will 'collect' all the lockboxes. At any time, a rogue can go to Jimmy, browse the lockboxes and be PAID the small fee to open them. At this point, Jimmy then mails the unlocked (but not opened) lockbox back to the client so that they can have their loot.

Rogues will already pick loot boxes for free so this would be a step backwards in that regard.

[Ironwood]

Aren't the AH's supposed to fill up with Crap Items ?  Isn't that the point ?  One man's crap is another man's Turtle Meat Chowder.  As for Travelling there - well, again, that's the point of the other AH's anyway - it's just making the Gadgetzan one viable, which it isn't now.  I agree that proxy bidding is a good idea in theory, I'm not sure about how it would work in practice.  Give me some details on how you see it working.


As to the Lockboxes :  A step backwards for who ?  The Non-Rogues ?  Fuck 'em.  The point of us having a singular skill that no-one else has is that it's supposed to benefit us.  Why the fuck would you open a box that's grey to you for a complete stranger ?  Maybe if it skilled you up, but not beyond that.  This way, if you came to Wee Jimmy, you could open everyone's boxes in a oncer and make yourself some bunce.  What's the problem again ?

[Ironwood]

  You already get enough stuff from pickpocket, and really, it would be WAY too imbalancing to put stuff in the scattered lockboxes (hell, I walked up and down the shore of ashenvale the other day looking for Stranglekelp and must have seen at LEAST 10 or more of those Waterlogged Footlockers.)  Maybe what you need is a vendor that sells practice locks or something.

You misread, I think.  The scattered lockboxes are fucking stupid.  I think they should be gotten rid of.  That's the entire thrust of my idea - sure, take away the money from lockpicking if you really must, or make it a token amount, but the scattered lockboxes are fucking, fucking, fucking stupid.

Especially the ones in the sunken temple.  Jesus Christ, it's retarded.



Edited to add :  Saw another suggestion for Enchanters, which is to make their enchantments a ball/scroll/application thingy.  This would mean they get to cast it and then put it up on the AH for sale.  I approve of this also.  Finding a market for your enchantments seems just as sucky and whimsical as lockboxes.

[Trippy]

I agree that proxy bidding is a good idea in theory, I'm not sure about how it would work in practice.  Give me some details on how you see it working.

Basically the same way it does at places like eBay -- when you bid on an item you can optionally set a maximum bid and the AH will automatically calculate the new bid price based on all the proxy bids and the highest manual bid.

[Ironwood]

Yes.  In that case I like it.

Some people have suggested 'Remote Bidding'.  I don't like that.

[Pococurante]

Blizz announced "some time back" all AH would be unified.

The enchanter announcement is very welcome!

[WayAbvPar]

Edited to add :  Saw another suggestion for Enchanters, which is to make their enchantments a ball/scroll/application thingy.  This would mean they get to cast it and then put it up on the AH for sale.  I approve of this also.  Finding a market for your enchantments seems just as sucky and whimsical as lockboxes.

That is a good plan. Being an enchanter is such a fucking pain in the ass to begin with- just skilling up takes forever. God forbid you try to  recoup any of your massive gold loss on the way up- no one bothers to buy low level enchantments. If you could make them portable and auctionable, that would be a huge boost.

[Yegolev]

Just put a AH in Undercity.  That would be nice.  Even nicer would be proxy bidding.

I would go to Gadget if it wasn't a deathtrap in which you can sometimes buy kittens.  The outpost should be neutral even on a PvP server, since the guards can't climb onto roofs.

Fuck rogues.

[Amp]

I'd be content if the guards wouldn't attack me for defending myself.
That place is a mess.

[sidereal]

Get off the PvP servers, for the children.  It's not like there aren't enough daily outrages in the game that you should manufacture more for yourself by putting half the zones off limits.

On the ideas:
1) This is a grand idea.  The reason the GZ AH sucks is because there's nothing there except pets and alts selling light leather to their mains for 100 gold.  The reason nobody auctions anything legit there is because the pool of potential buyers is about 1/10000 of what it would be if you waded through the permanent mardi gras outside the Ironforge AH.  If you could auction something there without removing your ability to auction it at home, and without having to freaking walk there, people would do it.  If people did it, people would go there.  If I'm looking for a specific foozle-whacker (and I am, *cough*twigoftheworldtree*cough*), I'd jump at the chance to buy from twice the pool of sellers (much more actually, since I'm horde.  Probably 3/4 of the AH activity is on the Alliance side).  There'd be a ton of traffic in GZ trying to buy across faction.  Which would increase the buying pool even more and increase the motivation for selling there even more.

2) This'd be great for non-rogues, too.  Because I've got like 20 chests sitting in my bank vault.  I don't want to have to wail on a channel to get them opened.  And I really don't want to socialize with fucking rogues.

[Tannhauser]

Gadget sucks because the AH fees are simply outrageous.  Also Gadget is wayyy down south and why go to all the trouble of going down there when Org is there with a tremendous selection of AH items?  Hardly ever see anything worth buying at Gadget anyway.

[Ironwood]

Gadget sucks because the AH fees are simply outrageous.  Also Gadget is wayyy down south and why go to all the trouble of going down there when Org is there with a tremendous selection of AH items?  Hardly ever see anything worth buying at Gadget anyway.

All of which I was trying to address.