Updated Auction House Coming to Cataclysm Classic; Raid Finder Delayed

In this week’s PTR, we’re testing Auction House updates.

We also have our second Dragon Soul raid weekend, which will run from Friday, January 31 at 1:30 p.m. PST until Monday, February 3 at 10:00 a.m. PST.

Auction House

An updated Auction House will make its debut in patch 4.4.2.

In this PTR, we’ll test the transition from the previous Auction House to the updated one.

• First, the PTR auction house will close.
• Auctions will expire naturally over the weekend. Player-testers may lose deposits, as no buyers can buy during the closure.
• On Monday, the new updated auction house will become available.

Following the AH update:

• Commodities (stackable items) are no longer sold in individual stacks.
  • This allows you to select the number of items you want to buy, and the Auction House will automatically locate the lowest priced auctions to sell to you.
• You’ll be able to see the unit price and total price before you make your purchase.
  • With the lowest-priced items always sorted to the top, you’ll never have to dig for the best deal again.
• When selling commodity items, rather than setting a price for stacks of items, you’ll be asked to set a price per unit.
  • This gives buyers the ability to decide how many items they wish to purchase at a much more granular level.
• Non-stackable items are now grouped together in categories of their own.
  • For example, a piece of gear like Master’s Boots of Stamina will have its own category, in which there may be numerous listings of that piece of gear at various prices.
• Certain elements of the UI have been reorganized so that browsing, sorting, and purchasing items is more intuitive
• Items will continue to be realm-specific, including commodities.
• When listing an item for sale, the auction house will not recommend a default price based on the lowest listing. Players can either click on an existing listing to set their price based on that listing, or enter their price manually.

For Classic, we think it’s appropriate to preserve the experience of actively choosing what price you’d like to set for an item rather than recommending the lowest possible price at all times.

Dragon Soul

• There are not character templates specifically for Dragon Soul testing, but there are vendors to help with all of your gearing needs. The typical gem, consumables, glyphs, and other vendors will be available in Stormwind and Orgrimmar.
  • A special vendor, Dragon Soultar, will also be available in both cities. He sells Firelands Raid tier gear, as well as Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest.
• The entrance to the raid is located in the Caverns of Time in Tanaris.
• Since the last test, bugs have been fixed, such as:
  • Hagara’s adds now spawn in proper waves, and the boss no longer activates early.
  • The extra action button is now available during the Ultraxion and Madness of Deathwing encounters.
  • There is no longer an item work-around for Ultraxion, and Ysera’s “Enter the Dream” ability is now available.
  • The Spine of Deathwing encounter works properly, and no longer teleports players to the beginning of the encounter.

Raid Finder

In last week’s PTR notes, we indicated that Dragon Soul’s Raid Finder mode would be ready for testing soon. Unfortunately, after an evaluation of its current progress, it’s clear to us the implementation we’ve been working towards will be an unsatisfying experience for players.

We’ve made the decision to pause our plans to implement the Dragon Soul Raid Finder.

We recognize that the rewards from Raid Finder, particularly gear at the very start of the raid tier, are highly desired. We’re preparing alternative avenues for players to acquire those rewards, whether or not they participate in the other difficulties of the raid. We will have more to share on this soon.

Thank you for your participation and your feedback!