Friday, May 20, 2011

Neutral AH and you...

So first things first.... really sorry bout not getting this out sooner, but it was really hectic yesterday....

Couple days ago I talked about cross faction pets and how they're going to be in higher demand... today I'm going to talk about cross faction trading, the risk, and what you can do to protect your goods....

First things first if you want to trade goods cross faction you will need to go to a neutral AH. Neutral AH's are located in Booty Bay, Gadgetstan, and Everlook. Unlike regular AH's these cater to both sides as long as your neutral or higher towards Steamwheedle Cartel. If you are unfriendly or hated you will not be able to interact with the neutral AH npc. These AH's unfortunately charge a 15% cut for sold auctions meaning that, unless your prepared to take the financial hit, it is recommended that you don't post expensive goods here.

Now if you wish to trade cross faction there are two ways of doing it. You can post to the neutral ah and sell your goods there or you can arrange for your good to be put up for a very cheap price and then buy it on a character on the other faction to resell in that factions AH. Both sides have their advantages, but personally I feel that it is better to post in the alternating factions auction house for several reasons.

The first is that you avoid the cut the neutral auction house takes from you. It can really add up in the long run. Back in the early days of 3.1 I posted up Argent Tournament pets up for 3-5K each and probably sold 4 before I stopped doing the dailies. Thats between 1800 to 3000 gold lost in AH fees alone....

The second is that not a lot of players regularly check the neutral AH. As a result you are losing out many players who probably would buy said goods on impulse.

The third is that it allows you to build funds on the opposite faction. This is especially big as some times certain goods are cheaper on one faction as opposed to the other. Few months ago when cataclysm came out I saw 2 unheeded warnings up on the alliance side for 4K each, horde side where my main was these were going for 8-10K. Luckily I had enough to buy both and managed to safely get them to my horde character who then sold them for a 6K profit each. The profits gained were used to buy a world drop piece that I then sold back on the alliance side for an additional 5K profit. This means that I made a 17K profit just by spending 8K....

What do you need to do to safely transfer goods in the neutral ah between toons.

First things first you either need a second account or a friend/guildy that you can trust. If you have a second account and want to just start trading on the neutral AH I would just suggest you start running to booty bay. However, I would suggest you level your character on the opposite faction. I will explain why later....

Once you or your friend/guildy's new toon are there I would suggest that you get your main toon, or whatever toon you want to use to trade, over to one of the neutral AH's. For safety's sake I suggest that you go to either the one in Everlook or Gadgetstan, but personally, I prefer Gadgetstan. The reason for this is that all 3 neutral AH's are connected thus if you are transferring goods someone in one of those 3 are capable or intercepting them. This way you have 2/3rd's of the neutral AH's covered and can tell if someone is trying to snipe your auctions. If someone is there I recommend that you either log off and get back on later or if you really need the goods now I suggest that you post something you can afford to lose. If it gets sniped I recommend that you stop and wait, but if it doesn’t you can go forward but, exercise caution.

For this reason I also suggest that, if you can afford the time and have a 2nd account, level the alternate toon. Nothing stands out more then something level 1-5 near the neutral auction house.

However, once you are at the auction house you get ready to post whatever you want to post to the opposite toon. It’s a good idea to make sure your alternate toon has some money before hand so you avoid the classic I put something up for less than 1 silver and it got snipped by a bot scenario. I suggest putting up vendor trash on the ah for one copper and having the alt toon buy it then sell it to build some intial funds. Once you are ready you post whatever you wish to trade and have u or you friend/guildmate snag it up quickly.

Once that is done you can now post it in the opposite faction’s ah. To avoid delays I have the goods sent immediately to an alternate toon that is the same faction and then post in the AH.

2 comments:

  1. Great article. I've recently been doing much more cross-faction and it has amazing profit potential.

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  2. Nice post but I have just one criticism for you - please make the font a little bigger! I really struggled to read this size font especially with the white on black too.

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