I was able to snipe the following items for a grand total of 3.9 mil just before the server went down.

Dead Man's Legacy x 4
Depth Diggers x 9
Immortal King's Boots x 2
Immortal King's Helm x 3
Inna's Chest x 1
Lacuni Prowlers x 1
Litany of the Undaunted x 4
Natalya's Helm x 1
Tal Rasha's Source x 2
Vile Ward x 4
Zunimissa's Pox x 9



I expect a ROI of 300-500%.

Though I will continue to use this to my advantage until it is fixed, this is a ridiculous AH game mechanic that needs to be adjusted. I understand that players need to be smart and understand the risks of posting items with no minimum and no buyout, but they are playing within the rules of the game and getting penalized for it.

If an auction has 4 hours remaining at 2:59AM PST, with no buyout and no minimum, and the server is about to go down at 3AM PST for 12 hours, that auction should be suspended with the exact amount of time left allotted for the auction. When the server comes back online, the auction is allowed to resume.

Perhaps there are ramifications for what I am suggesting, but I can't think of any at the moment. eBay used to suspend/resume auctions back in 1998 when the website would occasionally go down in the dial-up days.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE playing AH Tycoon, including speculating on prices, using arbitrage and especially using D3RMT as my daily commodities stock ticker. This just seems unfair to the thousands of people who got sniped.

I am curious to see how this community feels about this issue.
Thoughts?

This method has been around forever. We have an entire thread devoted to it. I picked up my current Witching Hour belt at a 30% discount a few months ago. The opportunities have pretty much dried up now, though since most people know about it.

What made it different this time around was twofold:
1) That they announced the maintenance incredibly late
2) It effectively took 14-16 hours instead of the 8 they indicated

I grabbed an IK Belt and IK Boulder Breaker cheap as a result, but that's just because they ended in that time period not because I was targeting them specifically. Don't expect to get the same results the next time there's maintenance.

I remember doing this a few times when the game was in its earlier stages. It helped me to build "early" wealth (like 20M gold back in July or August or something), which really helped in farming/building more wealth from there. These days, the amount of gold I aim for is just so high that this strategy is difficult to use (I'm not gonna flip an item worth less than 10M or so and upgrades for me are 100M+). I suppose it's possible to catch someone off guard, but most people selling these types of items make bid and BO the same.

Speak of the devil, though. The Server is being taken down and they added (temporarily hopefully) 8 hours to every item finishing in under 2 hours or something along those lines. Every auction is ending 8h 8m with 8 minutes left until the server is pulled down. Guess you got in on the last chance! It's about time they did something like this.

I think Bliz should stop the AH timer whenever the server is down. This would allow sellers who like to play low bid get the maximum benefit from the listing time. Before that, there is nothing wrong to be an opportunist and take advantage of the server downtown, although I do not take the effort to do this since I have no specific item to hunt for.

I enjoy playing AH tycoon as well, although not in such a comprehensive and in-depth scale. Recent speculation on brimstones helps me win big (>100m?), but to me this is not as satisfying as:

1) Placing max bid in the last couple of second and win the item, knowing that you outbid the other buyers. I won a 1H by placing 5,000,500 and I got a refund of 500 gold, I still wonder what does that mean..........the 2nd highest bidder placed 5m exact and I do not have to raise him by another 15%?

2) Finding a 1D11hr or 1D12hr item for bargain, and flip it

3) Keep receiving notifications that your auctions have been sold

4) Finding a niche market which you can gain control

Attached is my AH successful sales during the couple of hours in the morning of Valentine's Day, the amount of gold is small, but I like the quantities and the flow:

I had forgotten some of the improvements they made, like getting auction notifications in-game. Still, it seems like there are a few enhancements that could make everyone's life easier. Here's my wishlist:

1. Allow me to increase my maximum bid without having to outbid myself. This is completely asinine and it's unbelievable this functionality wasn't in 1.0.2, let alone 1.0.7.

2. Auction Item Bookmarks a.k.a., "Items I'm Watching" - sometimes I just want to track the going price of an item and don't want to put a bid down on it.

3. Allow me to see the completed price on an auction I did bid on or I'm watching.

4. Every time a new maximum bid is accepted on an auction with under 1 minute remaining, increase the time remaining on that auction to 1 minute. This would eliminate sniping entirely and would be so much better for sellers in creating biding wars. Only flippers would get the short end of the stick, but Blizzard's focus has always been on the players and not the AH tycoons. I would put up so many more of my auctions at low bid prices if this change were implemented.

I understand that their servers can't handle the traffic that auction periods under 36 hours would cause, but it sure would be nice to be able to set a 12-hour or 24-hour auction even if it would make life harder for flippers.

Some great ideas here, ecocd. In particular, I'd love a "watch list". If there is ever a Dev Q&A concerning the AH, I hope you'd post your feedback before the thread closes.

So tonight/tomorrow, we have a 12 hour maintenance window. Let's see what happens this time, if they go with the "8-8-8" again.