The World of Warcraft site has been updated with a pair of newsy news items. In the first, devs detail a number of changes coming to the item listing process on the WoW Auction House. In the second, an exploit that allowed players to "farm" quests repeatedly to gain Exalted reputations has been identified and hotfixed. Players who took advantage of the exploit will be punished, though no word has come down yet on what that punishment will be.
Since the launch of Battle for Azeroth, players have complained about how laggy the interface has been as it culls through available items for sale. Much of this has been caused by thousands of listings of single items, particularly trade goods.
"One thing we've identified as particularly troublesome is a large volume of trade skill materials being auctioned off in stacks of 1." the post reads.
At issue is the fact that the listing price is currently very low per item listed. That will, however, be changing. The price to list items will go up. So, whether a player is listing a single item or a "stack" of 200, the price to list remains the same, though obviously more punishing on the low-end. The hope is that this will reduce the number of single item listings and that the Auction House interface will speed up.
- Let’s say that a player is trying to sell 200 Tidespray Linen for 10g (gold) each. Today, each item has the normal deposit cost of 1c (copper), with a 1s (silver) minimum deposit, so 1 auction of 200 linen requires a deposit of 1s, and 200 auctions of 1 linen each adds up to a total deposit of 2g.
- Now imagine an additional 20% deposit added to the listing fee per auction. With an asking price of 10g each, that raises the deposit by 2g per stack. In the case of 1 stack of 200 linen, the total buyout price is 2000g, and the new deposit is 2g1s. In the case of 200 individual stacks, the new deposit of an additional 2g per stack brings the total deposit up to 402g.
In the second news item, a recent exploit allowed players to complete certain quests repeatedly without them subsequently being listed as "complete". The quests would remain active, with players able to turn them in to both gain the gold reward and the attendant reputation gain. For many, that meant all the way to exalted by leveraging the bug. Raid groups were "farming" these quests to provide members with exalted status.
However, Blizzard has hotfixed the issue (and will be applying additional hotfixes to the bug) and will be "taking action against those who are abusing it".
Read more at the links above.
What do you believe an appropriate punishment for taking advantage of an exploit should be?
