I’m continuing my journey into the depths of the Warlords Alpha which has now morphed into the Beta – at least that is what my application client tells me. While in the Alpha phase of the development I was able to create a Horde Shaman and explored the initial phase of garrison building. But a passing comment in a blue post today stopped me in my tracks:

If this is true, then the merging of faction Auction Houses will have a large impact on the wow economy. Traditionally, each faction’s Auction House trade independent of each other, creating, in effect, two separate economies on the same server.

Now, for those new to the wow gold economy you may be thinking to yourself: so what? But as Auction House goblins know all too well the size an Auction House matters and in-balances between populations of factions on the same server can greatly skew the pricing across a whole range mats and items that are commonly traded.

Remembering that the current Warlords development is only just out of the alpha phase, I decided to log in and conduct a little test for myself to see if in fact the Auction Houses were indeed ‘unified’.

So, I created a Horde character called Maakin and placed him in Orgrimmar. I had already created a human Mage – Zan – and placed him in Stormwind. I then placed a simple mat (small glimmering shard) on the Horde Auction House and attached a silly price of 11,000g to it:

I then logged off and logged on to my Alliance character and searched for my character’s Maakin’s trade:

An sure enough it was there on the Alliance Auction House!

But, what of the neutral Auction Houses run by those irascible goblins? I headed down to Booty Bay and checked it out:

Yep, there is was. So, the Blue Post would seem to hold true. All auction Houses have been merged!

For many new players, this won’t be a big deal. For those that have been playing the Auction House for a little while and have accumulated pricing data in an addon, they may see large swings in prices when the expansion breaks until the various markets stabilise. Of course, the biggest shock will be to those Horde players used to trading in small population Auction Houses. For those that have mastered the art of trading, this initial surge in activity will seem like a ripple upon the sea of the wow gold economy; for others, it will seem like a tsunami.

Marcus Ty



