22-auction-house-economy

Auction House and Economy

Buy from stocked city auction houses, sell to an automated bidder, and understand where gold enters and leaves the realm.

Status: LIVE — Alliance, Horde, and neutral auction houses are stocked by a server-run seller, and automated bidders can buy or bid on eligible player auctions. Limited: the seller does not stock armor, weapons, enchant scrolls, Wrath items, or custom items; bidders only act on eligible goods. Staff-only: the MultiVendor shell on GM Island. Disabled: the .ah remote-auction command and the PaperDollAH button.

At a glance

• Stocked houses: Alliance, Horde, and neutral auction houses each have their own seller.
• Seller stock: trade goods, consumables, gems, glyphs, recipes, bags, projectiles, and similar eligible items.
• Seller caps: 10,000 auctions each for Alliance and Horde; 18,000 for neutral.
• Restock: every 1 minute, up to 500 new auctions per house per cycle.
• Bidders: all three houses have an automated bidder that runs every 5 minutes and can take up to 500 actions per cycle.
• Starting bid: 80% of the buyout price on newly generated auctions.
• Price variation: generated buyouts vary by 94–106% before the house multiplier.
• Neutral markup: the neutral seller multiplier is currently 1.00×, so there is no special goblin surcharge.
• Auction rates: duration, deposit, and cut are all 1×.
• Level requirement: level 1.
• No cross-faction auction: Alliance, Horde, and neutral are separate markets.
• No remote auctioneer: there is no player .ah command and no PaperDollAH button.
• No Auctionator client addon: “Auctionator” here is the server module that stocks the houses. It is not an addon you install or open.

How to use the Auction House

1. Find an auctioneer. Use the normal auctioneers in Stormwind, Orgrimmar, other capital cities, or the goblin neutral houses in Gadgetzan, Booty Bay, and Everlook.
2. Browse the house. Search normally. The house already contains server-generated stock plus anything players have listed.
3. Check the seller price. If an item is plentiful, compare the auction buyout with a vendor price before buying. The seller is not a charity vendor.
4. Buy out or bid. Player listings follow normal auction rules. Server-generated listings have a real starting bid set to 80% of buyout.
5. List your own items. Use the normal Create Auction tab. Deposit, duration, and cut are standard 1× rates.
6. Wait for the bidder. An eligible player auction may be bought or bid on by the automated bidder within a few cycles. It is not an instant sale and it is not guaranteed.
7. Collect expired auctions and sales. Use the normal Auctions tab and mailbox. There is no remote collection command.

Which house should you use?

House	Who can use it	Seller cap	Best for
Alliance	Alliance characters	10,000	Alliance-side materials and goods
Horde	Horde characters	10,000	Horde-side materials and goods
Neutral	Both factions	18,000	Cross-faction shopping, usually at a goblin town

The three houses do not share stock. An item can be available in the neutral house while both faction houses are empty, or the reverse. A neutral purchase also does not bypass the normal auction cut.

What the server seller stocks

The seller is a supply source, not a complete gear shop. Its eligible stock is mainly:

• Trade goods: herbs, ore, bars, cloth, leather, enchanting materials, and similar crafting inputs.
• Consumables: potions, flasks, food, water, and other class-table consumables where eligible.
• Gems, including non-epic gems.
• Glyphs, including Wrath glyphs.
• Recipes and patterns.
• Bags and other containers.
• Projectiles and similar supplies.

The following are not stocked by the seller:

• Armor and weapons. The broad armor/weapon exclusion wins even though those item classes exist in the seller’s class table.
• Enchant scrolls. Enchanting materials can appear; enchant scrolls cannot.
• Wrath of the Lich King items, with one exception: Wrath glyphs remain eligible.
• Custom From the Ashes items. The custom-item exclusion is on.
• Poor-quality items. Grey stock is skipped.
• Bound items. The seller query excludes bind-on-pickup and bind-on-equip rows.

This means you cannot rely on the Auction House for a full leveling gear set, a weapon upgrade, or a custom-item shortcut. Use quests, dungeons, vendors, professions, and drops for gear.

Automated bidders

Each faction house and the neutral house has its own bidder.

• Cycle: every 5 minutes.
• Actions: up to 500 successful bids or buyouts per cycle per house.
• Eligible targets: auctions that pass the same item-family and expansion filters as the seller.
• No self-dealing: the bidder does not act on Auctionator’s own listings.
• Market pricing: imported market prices are preferred. If no market price exists, the bidder uses quality-based fallback limits.
• Market cap: with market data, the acceptable buyout is based on average unit price × stack size × house multiplier × 1.75 padding.
• Player auctions: a bidder can buy or bid on your eligible listings. This is the main way player-listed materials turn over.
• Excluded goods: the bidder respects the Wrath, custom-item, armor/weapon, enchant-scroll, and poor-quality exclusions. A player-listed Wrath item or custom item will not be rescued by the bidder.

Practical effect: list common materials, consumables, gems, glyphs, bags, and recipes at a sensible price. Do not list a Wrath raid drop, a custom item, or an overpriced armor piece and expect the bidder to take it.

Where gold comes from and goes

Income

• Quests: quest cash is paid at 1×. Quest item and experience rewards are separate.
• Loot: coin from corpses and containers is 1×. There is no map-wide gold multiplier.
• Vendors: sell unwanted gear and trade goods normally. Poor-quality items can be sold automatically with Junk to Gold.
• Auction House: sell eligible materials and goods to players or the automated bidder.
• Guild bank: a guilded character contributes to the guild bank automatically, but the contribution is a deduction from that character’s own coin, not extra income.

Expenses

• Repairs: normal vendor repair cost at 1×. The .repair command is Disabled, so repair at a vendor or with a repair bot/mount.
• Training: class, profession, weapon, and riding training use the normal costs, with the realm’s mount-level rules.
• Auction deposits and cuts: standard 1×.
• Guild contributions: if you are guilded, 15% of looted coin and 15% of quest cash is deposited into your guild bank, up to what your character can pay.
• Vendors: reagents, food, water, recipes, mounts, and other normal vendor purchases.

Junk to Gold

.junktogold on and .junktogold off toggle automatic selling for the current login session.

• Only newly looted grey items are sold. Existing grey stock in your bags is not swept on login.
• Quest items, containers, loot-bearing items, refundable or tradeable items, and zero-price items are retained.
• Use .junktogold off before looting a grey item you want to keep for a collection or transmog set.

Guild funds

For a guilded character:

• 15% of coin looted is deducted and deposited to the guild bank.
• 15% of quest cash is deducted and deposited to the guild bank.
• In a group, the deduction is based on that member’s share of the loot and only applies to nearby guilded members.
• If the guild bank cannot accept the deposit, the deduction is skipped.

This is a real cost to the character, not a bonus. Unguilded characters are unaffected.

Commands & UI

Action	How to do it
Open an auction house	Talk to any auctioneer
Browse or search	Normal Auction House Browse tab
List an item	Normal Create Auction tab
Collect sales or expired auctions	Normal Auctions tab, then your mailbox
Toggle automatic junk sales	.junktogold on / .junktogold off
Repair	A repair vendor or repair mount; .repair is Disabled
Remote Auction House	Disabled — no .ah, no PaperDollAH button
Manage the server seller	.auctionator is GM-only; see the admin note

• No player auction command. The Auction House is an NPC service. There is no .ah, .auction, or remote-auction slash command for players.
• PaperDollAH is hidden. The addon receives a disabled state because the custom auction command is off.
• Auctionator is not an addon. Do not look for an Auctionator client window. The name belongs to the server module.
• MerchantMate is a vendor addon. It repairs equipped gear and sells poor-quality items at vendors; it does not provide remote auction access.

Tips

• Buy crafting materials, not gear. The seller focuses on consumables and trade goods; gear is deliberately absent.
• Use the neutral house for cross-faction goods. It has the largest cap and both factions can reach it.
• Check both faction and neutral prices. Stock and price multipliers are separate.
• Do not corner a common material. The seller refills every minute, and category-aware restocking targets empty buckets.
• List eligible goods, not Wrath gear. The bidder respects the same Wrath and custom-item exclusions as the seller.
• Price to the market. Market-priced auctions are considered before fallback-priced ones; an absurd buyout will not be rescued.
• One listing is not a guaranteed sale. Bidders act every five minutes and have a per-cycle action cap.
• Repair before you shop. .repair is off; a full repair bill can erase a small auction profit.
• Watch the guild cut. Guilded characters lose 15% of looted and quest coin to the guild bank.
• Turn Junk to Gold off for collection items. The sweep only covers new grey loot, but that is exactly when a keepsake can disappear.
• Do not expect a cash shop. Staff-only vendors and event items are not part of the normal economy loop.

Limits and configuration

• Seller enabled: yes, all three houses.
• Seller caps: Alliance 10,000; Horde 10,000; neutral 18,000.
• Seller cycle: 1 minute per house.
• Seller output: up to 500 new auctions per house per cycle.
• Auction query limit: 2,500 candidates per pass.
• Starting bid: 80% of buyout.
• Buyout fluctuation: 94–106%.
• House multipliers: Alliance 1.00×; Horde 1.00×; neutral 1.00×.
• Category refill threshold: 5 per class/subclass bucket.
• Duplicate caps: 3 per normal item; 20 per commodity item.
• Bidder cycle: 5 minutes per house.
• Bidder actions: up to 500 per house per cycle.
• Bidder self-bidding: off.
• Bidder market padding: 1.75×.
• Wrath items: excluded, except glyphs.
• Custom items: excluded.
• Armor and weapons: excluded.
• Enchant scrolls: excluded.
• Poor-quality items: excluded from seller stock; still sellable to vendors and Junk to Gold.
• Cross-faction auction: off.
• Auction duration, deposit, and cut: 1×.
• Auction level requirement: 1.
• Remote auction: disabled.
• Player .repair: disabled.
• Map gold multiplier: disabled.
• Guild cut: 15% of looted coin and 15% of quest cash.

Related systems

• Overview and index for the catalog and status legend.
• 07 — Professions and gathering for the materials and recipes that drive the house.
• 12 — Glyphs for the glyph market and trainer recipes.
• 17 — Travel and quality of life for Junk to Gold and vendor repairs.
• 23 — Loot and rewards for coin drops and reward items.
• 24 — UI and addons for MerchantMate, PaperDollAH, and other vendor addons.
• 25 — Commands, NPCs, and addons reference for exact command aliases.
• 26 — Admin and config appendix for the seller, bidder, and economy switches.

Admin note

Core economy. Rate.Drop.Money=1, Rate.RewardQuestMoney=1, Rate.RewardBonusMoney=1, Rate.RepairCost=1, StartPlayerMoney=100, and MapGoldMultiplier.Enable=0. CustomRepairCommand.Enable=0, so .repair is unavailable despite the handler existing. CustomAuctionCommand.Enable=0 and CustomAuctionCommand.GMOnly=0; PaperDollAH is sent the disabled state and hides its button. AllowTwoSide.Interaction.Auction=0; Rate.Auction.Time=1, Rate.Auction.Deposit=1, Rate.Auction.Cut=1; LevelReq.Auction=1; AuctionHouse.WorkerThreads=2.

Auctionator. Configuration is Server/runtime/configs/modules/mod_auctionator.conf. Live seller values: Auctionator.Enabled=1; Alliance/Horde/Neutral MaxAuctions=10000/10000/18000; all CycleMinutes=1; all PriceMultiplier=1.0; AuctionsPerRun=500; QueryLimit=2500; DefaultPrice=5000; MaxItemEntry=56000; AuctionStartBidPct=0.80; FluctuationMin=0.94; FluctuationMax=1.06; CategoryAwareFill=1; CategoryRefillThreshold=5; MaxDuplicateAuctionsPerItem=3; MaxDuplicateAuctionsPerCommodity=20. Expansion weights are Vanilla 55, TBC 40, WotLK 5, Custom 0; WotLK glyph bypass is Auctionator.Seller.IncludeGlyphsWithExpansionFilters=1, while Exclude.WotLKItems=1 and Exclude.CustomItems=1. Family exclusions are armor/weapons, enchant scrolls, and poor quality; gems, trade goods, and glyphs are not excluded. The seller query also enforces bonding != 1 and bonding != 4 and uses mod_auctionator_itemclass_config.

Bidders. All three bidders are enabled at CycleMinutes=5 and MaxPerCycle=500; BidOnOwn=0; CandidateLimitMultiplier=200; CandidateMinimumLimit=5000; PrioritizeMarketPriceAuctions=1; RespectExpansionExclusions=1; MarketPricePadding=1.75. Fallback quality multipliers are Poor 2, Normal 3, Uncommon 4, Rare 5, Epic 7, Legendary 10. The bidder path has no separate synthetic-funds check; MaxPerCycle and the price caps are the practical controls. Keep that in mind before raising caps.

GM control. .auctionator is SEC_GAMEMASTER and console-capable. Subcommands: add, auctionspercycle, bidonown, bidspercycle, disable, enable, expireall, multiplier, status, reloadorigins, and help. Use .auctionator status to inspect current house fill and seller state. reloadorigins reloads item_origin_manifest; it is not a general config reload. After editing the module config, use .reload config or restart, then verify with status.

MultiVendor. MultiVendor.Enable=1; shell entry 500500; vendor range 500000-500145; page size 14; entry IDs hidden. Delphi 500500 is spawned on GM Island and is staff-only. It is not a player auctioneer or an economy sink.

Other economy switches. JunkToGold.Enable=1, JunkToGold.Message=1, and an empty KeepItems list. GuildFunds.Looted=15 and GuildFunds.Quests=15 deduct from the player’s share and deposit to the guild bank; a full bank cancels the deposit. Do not describe the guild cut as bonus income. If any of these values change, update this document and Overview.