Is Auction House abuse okay?

[Tcpir]

I need help. I've been dealing with two players for months now who I believe are using either combinations of botting/programs/ or grossly advantageous addons. Specifically pertaining to the Auction House market. These players rake in gold over normal human players almost to exclusive monopoly due to the enormous advantage their aforementioned method gives them. I need help because it seems like no one cares or almost like it's totally okay for them to do this. I've observed both players for months through struggling against their unfair outside sources. They seem to be different and I strongly believe the first one is using a bot to run an addon which allows him to post an undefined amount of auctions all within 5 seconds. Before I describe more about what is going on I want to explain why it's not okay. These players go through no effort to completely control their chosen market vs human auctioneers. If we are to believe that trying to make gold on the auction house is part of the game, the addons and possible botting used by these players effectively removes the Auction House for humans of the specific market. I've seen many many human competitors and this is naturally fine. You end up taking turns for when you're auctions are on top or sometimes battle them to see who has more will power about it. These two players remove this environment every single time they are online, which is extremely often due to them using level 1 alts to bot run an addon while they farm or actually play the game. The first one who I believe to strongly believe to be a bot lets call Timbot33. I've battled Timbot33 for 3 hours before. His bot can be manipulated because it always undercuts the items it's been set to watch seconds to a few minutes within losing the lowest price. Timbot33 has a store of materials to make new items as the demand rises. His bot is programmed to post a new item when he loses the lowest price but it's incapable of canceling an auction and reposting it. It's for these reasons that if you can identify which items Timbot33 is watching you can post and wait briefly to be undercut, then cancel and repeat until Timbot33 runs out of that item and the material to create it. I did this for 3 hours once across multiples items he was watching resulting in 200+ posts by Timbot33 of items that would never be bought. When I did this I had already been convinced by mountains of instances looking like inhuman behavior. You would ask, why would I do this? It bothers me a lot that he can do this freely for as long as he has. The while I'm playing, not playing, trying to use a feature of the game, his bot is effortless, not only making gold, but screwing over every other human who would want to use this game feature like me. If I could defeat his bot I could actually post my own auctions without Timbot33 stealing everything. After I won my grueling battle and was within my first minutes of rejoice I experienced one of my old human competitors had now resorted to using the same tactics as Timbot33. Let's call him Orange44. I'd gone up against Orange44 before but no one else in the entirety of Lordaerons launch has been like Timbot33. Orange44 displays some qualities but isn't the same. He may be semi-bot, meaning that only during long afk times is the bot in use compared to the player actually in the window doing the moving; however, he is defiantly using a similar grossly advantageous acution manipulator addon. He is capable of the same instant posting across undefined amounts of items. I'm aware these addons exist but I'd like to debate their allowance. Even if they are allowed in Blizzard's game, we're not Blizzard, and our community isn't Blizzards. We have a chance to do things better, which I think is one of the greatest appeals of what Warmane is working for here. No one should be allowed to dominate an entire market by scrolling their mouse on an addon window to post 50 auctions in 5 seconds. Even if we accept this addon we have to look at the combined usage with other programs allowing these players to bot, semi-bot, or commit bot-like actions. The level 1 character afks in the Auction House the entire time the main is online. While afk the level 1 character will respond to every single time it's auction is undercut to always remain lowest. What triggered this article was actually that fact that I was so overwhelmed dealing with Timbot33 and Orange44 that I increasingly enjoyed the game less to the point It's hurt my play time significantly. I stopped playing all together for a few days after I discovered Timbot33 and Orange44's bots had gotten into a battle over one item. Since both were botted addons, they were programmed to fight each other until one ran out of materials or product to post. Scrolling through the long list of evidence they were both grossly abusing the system was too disgusting. I announced on global that you could check the Auction House now for a live Battle of the Bots, no need to guess, nobody cared. So I really couldn't find motivation to log back in because I want to participate in the Auction House feature while I advance my character. I've fought human competition and it's hard but not soul defeating like these two people make it. After 4-5 days of not having the will to deal with them I logged back in. I see that none of my competitors are online, I've logged in at a low pop, odd hour, after all. I withdraw my items to sell and hop over to the Auction House. I post my first auction and within 4 seconds Orange44 comes online. He then proceeds to the Auction House and undercuts the only auction I have on the entire market. I've been online maybe 3 minutes at this point. If on top of their soul crushing system abuse they also begin to stalk me to guarantee I never am allowed to use this feature I just can't even play. I'm starting a ruckus because just like everyone else I love to play here. I really really want to play here. I'm not going to play anywhere else as I've been a member here a long time and everyone else simply doesn't have the numbers. I just want the community to see my perspective here and back me up. It's either we favor people who do this by simply allowing them to continue to exist, or we do the hard thing and crack down to create a better environment. I'm a logical person so that makes this super difficult for me when the first is being chosen. I'm speaking out now hoping there will be loads of people who want the latter. Maybe it doesn't matter as much as I think it does that Timbot33 and Orange44 can cheat the gold system. I wonder if somehow cracking down on their abuse of human players and the economy would somehow raise not only the quality of Lordaeron, but the real money income too. Thanks for reading my plight.

[Obnoxious]

If you used paragraphs and the like I might be more tempted to read past the first couple lines.

Either way, there are add-ons made to scan the Auction House and buy items that are bellow an average price, then put them on sale for a better price with profit, and other things to play the Auction House and control prices. People use them even on retail. Unless you have some evidence that they are using more than add-ons (which are perfectly legal) I wouldn't see much action being taken.

[Tcpir]

I didn't read your post but I commented on why I disagree, even though you addressed it, I don't know because I didn't read it. Classic, thanks.

[Obnoxious]

I didn't read your post but I commented on why I disagree, even though you addressed it, I don't know because I didn't read it. Classic, thanks.

1. I didn't read your whole post because you give "wall of text" a whole different meaning. It's not appealing or interesting to read. There's a reason why people created the division in paragraphs;

2. I didn't state I disagree. It's beyond agreeing or disagreeing. If they are using legal means to do it, they aren't doing anything that should be acted on. If you can show they are doing something considered illegal, go ahead. Otherwise, if they're just using Auction House playing add-ons, you'll have to deal with it more than likely.

[Kempachu]

I didn't read your post but I commented on why I disagree, even though you addressed it, I don't know because I didn't read it. Classic, thanks.

Didnt read it either, tho i rly tried... It's a damn text of wall, without any punctuation n distinctions of what is important. Like Obn said..

[LikeDwind]

In my opinion staff should take actions against those

[Healsonheels]

Play World Of Warcraft, have fun, buy gear from the NPCs, wear your looting if possible, if it’s higher level than you, save it, if something better comes up, replace it in your bank and put the stuff that you don’t need in your Guild’s Vault.

The Auction House is a Mini Game in World of Warcraft and it is not made for brotherly, good-hearted, helpful, hospitable,, kindly, caring, compassionate, sympathetic, courteous, polite, respectful, altruistic, beneficent and generous people like yourself.

The Auction House Mini Game is played and controlled by inhospitable, unkind, ill-bred, impolite, rude, uncivil, unhelpful, malevolent, mean and spiteful dealers, merchandisers, traders and traffickers who probably enjoyed playing PC games that contain the word Tycoon in their titles. They like the “Monopoly” chapter in John D. Rockefeller’s biography, play Texas Hold'em with their friends and obviously always win because people is so dumb. And I am sure that when they played the Monopoly board game they secretely made an “Alliance” with the “Bank” person, the one who handled the colorful bills.

Just remember how boring and long this game was to you, and remember that when you once won, if you ever did, you didn’t care and you just wanted your friend to put everything in the box so that you guys could play Killer Instinct or NBA Hangtime on his Super Nintendo, and when in the toys aisle at Wal-Mart you saw the Limited Editions of Monopoly and you were like: LOL I don’t know why they make those versions if nobody evens like the original one.

If you decide to “Play” the Auction House, I recommend you to not listen to people giving you advice, these people will try to mind-**** you in a very subtle way, and you may end up wondering if they are being serious or not, you may ask and they will answer but you will be more confused…
The point is… You will buy at a very high price and feel dumb, and try to justify your action by saying that you don’t have time to farm or something. You will also try to sell, failing, trying again, until it finally sells, and you will think… Damn it, I was just focusing on selling it that I forgot its value, I should have listened to the kind woman on the Forum who told me to gift it to a guild mate. Guilds will always give you more than what you give.

Always gift, never sell.

Never buy.

Be aware.

[YakumoYukari]

Some addons (like Auctionator) let you check if your items were undercut, cancel them and put at a lower price. They also automate the process of listing items, so you can list dozens in a matter of seconds.

[Urmomdotcom]

In my opinion staff should take actions against those

Yes, if he actually made a proper report.

His post is wall of garbage text that no one will actually fully read beacuse it hurt your eyes.

[Kemii]

This is basically what my Auctionator addon does..... There is nothing illegal with addons, since they are forced to keep within a restrictive set of API.

[Firnblut]

Okay, i did read your post and i got headaches now.

I need help.
I've been dealing with two players for months now who I believe are using either combinations of botting/programs/ or grossly advantageous addons. Specifically pertaining to the Auction House market.
These players rake in gold over normal human players almost to exclusive monopoly due to the enormous advantage their aforementioned method gives them. I need help because it seems like no one cares or almost like it's totally okay for them to do this.
I've observed both players for months through struggling against their unfair outside sources. They seem to be different and I strongly believe the first one is using a bot to run an addon which allows him to post an undefined amount of auctions all within 5 seconds.

Before I describe more about what is going on I want to explain why it's not okay:
These players go through no effort to completely control their chosen market vs human auctioneers. If we are to believe that trying to make gold on the auction house is part of the game, the addons and possible botting used by these players effectively removes the Auction House for humans of the specific market.
I've seen many many human competitors and this is naturally fine. You end up taking turns for when you're auctions are on top or sometimes battle them to see who has more will power about it.
These two players remove this environment every single time they are online, which is extremely often due to them using level 1 alts to bot run an addon while they farm or actually play the game.

The first one who I believe to strongly believe to be a bot lets call Timbot33. I've battled Timbot33 for 3 hours before. His bot can be manipulated because it always undercuts the items it's been set to watch seconds to a few minutes within losing the lowest price. Timbot33 has a store of materials to make new items as the demand rises. His bot is programmed to post a new item when he loses the lowest price but it's incapable of canceling an auction and reposting it.
It's for these reasons that if you can identify which items Timbot33 is watching you can post and wait briefly to be undercut, then cancel and repeat until Timbot33 runs out of that item and the material to create it. I did this for 3 hours once across multiples items he was watching resulting in 200+ posts by Timbot33 of items that would never be bought. When I did this I had already been convinced by mountains of instances looking like inhuman behavior.

You would ask, why would I do this? It bothers me a lot that he can do this freely for as long as he has. The while I'm playing, not playing, trying to use a feature of the game, his bot is effortless, not only making gold, but screwing over every other human who would want to use this game feature like me. If I could defeat his bot I could actually post my own auctions without Timbot33 stealing everything.

After I won my grueling battle and was within my first minutes of rejoice I experienced one of my old human competitors had now resorted to using the same tactics as Timbot33.
Let's call him Orange44. I'd gone up against Orange44 before but no one else in the entirety of Lordaerons launch has been like Timbot33.
Orange44 displays some qualities but isn't the same. He may be semi-bot, meaning that only during long afk times is the bot in use compared to the player actually in the window doing the moving; however, he is defiantly using a similar grossly advantageous acution manipulator addon. He is capable of the same instant posting across undefined amounts of items. I'm aware these addons exist but I'd like to debate their allowance. Even if they are allowed in Blizzard's game, we're not Blizzard, and our community isn't Blizzards. We have a chance to do things better, which I think is one of the greatest appeals of what Warmane is working for here.

No one should be allowed to dominate an entire market by scrolling their mouse on an addon window to post 50 auctions in 5 seconds. Even if we accept this addon we have to look at the combined usage with other programs allowing these players to bot, semi-bot, or commit bot-like actions. The level 1 character afks in the Auction House the entire time the main is online. While afk the level 1 character will respond to every single time it's auction is undercut to always remain lowest.

What triggered this article was actually that fact that I was so overwhelmed dealing with Timbot33 and Orange44 that I increasingly enjoyed the game less to the point It's hurt my play time significantly. I stopped playing all together for a few days after I discovered Timbot33 and Orange44's bots had gotten into a battle over one item.
Since both were botted addons, they were programmed to fight each other until one ran out of materials or product to post. Scrolling through the long list of evidence they were both grossly abusing the system was too disgusting. I announced on global that you could check the Auction House now for a live Battle of the Bots, no need to guess, nobody cared. So I really couldn't find motivation to log back in because I want to participate in the Auction House feature while I advance my character. I've fought human competition and it's hard but not soul defeating like these two people make it.

After 4-5 days of not having the will to deal with them I logged back in. I see that none of my competitors are online, I've logged in at a low pop, odd hour, after all. I withdraw my items to sell and hop over to the Auction House. I post my first auction and within 4 seconds Orange44 comes online. He then proceeds to the Auction House and undercuts the only auction I have on the entire market. I've been online maybe 3 minutes at this point.
If on top of their soul crushing system abuse they also begin to stalk me to guarantee I never am allowed to use this feature I just can't even play.

I'm starting a ruckus because just like everyone else I love to play here. I really really want to play here. I'm not going to play anywhere else as I've been a member here a long time and everyone else simply doesn't have the numbers. I just want the community to see my perspective here and back me up.
It's either we favor people who do this by simply allowing them to continue to exist, or we do the hard thing and crack down to create a better environment.

I'm a logical person so that makes this super difficult for me when the first is being chosen. I'm speaking out now hoping there will be loads of people who want the latter. Maybe it doesn't matter as much as I think it does that Timbot33 and Orange44 can cheat the gold system.
I wonder if somehow cracking down on their abuse of human players and the economy would somehow raise not only the quality of Lordaeron, but the real money income too.
Thanks for reading my plight.

I threw in some paragraphs to ease reading a little bit for other readers. That was supposed to be your job, because you want other ppl to read your post (as you can see it's still hard to read your post, but it's a start...).
Posting **** like this is reckless and disresepctful.
Your post tells us that you dont care about us, you only want to off-load your frustration.

That said about your edditing, let me say something about your contents:

If you believe someone uses a bot and got evidence for this, please take screenshots, open a ticket and report the player to a GM. If you don't have evidence but strong suspicion take screenshots, open a ticket and ask a GM to look at the specific player. Don#t do this if you're not sure about it, but don't hesitate if you are sure.
GMs can watch logs of the actions of these players.

Playing the auction house:
Auctioneer-Addon allows you to scan the auction house and display average prices for all items, as well as display items which are cheaper than they should be.
If you want to play the auction house you need some gold to start with. But those players will buy very cheap items and then undercut existing auctions.
There are always those players who think "what, that guy wants to sell his item for 10g? i will sell mine for 1g!". The guy who is playing the auction house will buy this item and offer it for 10g. If he got some auctions running, he will keep the item in stock for later, if his auction is undercutted.
He will not cancel his existing auctions because - well who knows. Maybe demand is big and all auctions will be bought. So why canceling the auction while you got more items in stock?

There are ppl around who feel the auction house is the fun-part of the game. They invest hours a day to play the auction house. Maybe you only ran in some of them.
If not - as i said - take screenshots, open a ticket, explain the problem (using paragraphs!) and ask the gm kindly to have a look on the situation.

[Healsonheels]

We don't cancel our original auction because there's a lot of merchants that refuse to buy from certain merchants, if I post with Healsonheels name 12 merchants will refuse to buy the item. If I log on my 2nd bank alt and post the same item undercuting Healsonheels by 10 Gold the merchant that refused to buy from Healsonheels may buy from this random merchant.

We don't cancel our original auction because there's a lot of new people trying to get into some "markets", we think that these new merchants try to identify who is in "control" of the "market" so every now and then I start posting with my 1st bank alt and 2nd bank alt undercuting Healsonheels auctions, the new merchant may try to "get in" if he doesn't see new auctions trying to undercut each other.

We don't cancel our original auction because bots are not able to go to walk to the mailbox, retrieve mail, walk to the auction house and post again.

If you undercut and undercut and undercut and we stop posting at some point that means that there's no more items in our bags or the bot run out of Gold to post. If you undercut and undercut and undercut until the item is being sold for the lowest price possible in the AH it means that the "market" is just a drain for other merchants that try to get in or it is a "trap" to see what merchant is trying to see what's up. Make a bank alt to "test" your stupid theories. Look at the Merchant's name, add it to Friend List, when it's online go to ALL Auction Houses and make a /tar merchant's name macro and when you find it whisper him random things.

We will answer everything.

Bring it.

Edit: By the way... There's a reason why the Server have blocked the use of Auctioneer, twice. And they don't care about people that use Auctionator. If you know what's up, Auctioneer and bla bla bla, whisper me for bla bla bla... Wink wink nudge nudge.


-Healsonheels
www.WrathOfTheLichTwinks.TUMBLR.com

[linkoynn]

Any addons other than cosmetic addons (bartender etc) are ruining the game anyway

[Dantril]

I admit I've gotten fooled a couple of times by the guys selling a single arrow for 20g or whatever (this is on Deathwing, not Lordaeron). Part of me thinks about reporting them but then I realize I'm just a dummy. :)

Still wouldn't mind seeing that kind of behavior punished, though- the purpose is obviously to scam.

[Aleastraszabcde]

Holy **** that wall of text.