Darraxus Gold Tips #3: Blacksmithing

Blacksmithing has been a popular and expensive profession for as long as I can remember. You make plate armor and melee weapons which can all sell very well. I would rather talk about some of the non big ticket items that can sell well.

1) Belt Buckles: Any of the really. Ebonsteel belt buckles are needed by any character who runs instances and want to not be made fun of. They sell like crazy and make good profit margins on my server. I sell around 5-15 a day at between 175-300 gold each.

2) Imperial Plate Armor: This is the armor that makes you look like a Stormwind Guard. There are probably not a lot of players with the recipes these days due to the fact that they cost a ton of thorium bars to purchase. You can bark these sets in trade and sell them at a very heft markup. This is something you may want to look into with Transmogrification coming out.

3) Leveling tanking gear: One of the better selling leveling tanking gear is the Cobalt set that you can pickup at the beggining of Wrath content. I will be an upgrade over BC elevel items for most tanks that have not done BC raid content.

Darraxus Gold Tips #2: Leatherworking

Leatherworking. It sucks. Skinning levels much faster that LW and unless you buy materials you have to spend extra time farming. That said, there are of course profit opportunities if you want to give it a shot.

1) Leg Armor: I think that leg armor has long been the money maker of leatherworkers everywhere. Every melee class and Hunters will be needing your leg enchants. They sell quickly, but are a very competetive market.

2) The leather shuffle. There are a lot of people that have made a decent bit of gold off of the leather shuffle. You turn savage leather into Heavy Savage Leather. Then you turn that a Hide. This may not work on all servers.

3) Level 78-79 Cataclysm green items. These are actually pretty good sellers that sell for above material price. I sold several of these for 125 gold each no problem. The items are good for level 80 twinks as well as people who need to upgrade their Heirlooms before heading into Cataclysm content.

Not my favorite profession, but there is still gold to be made!

Darraxus Gold Tips #1: Tailoring

Ah tailoring. The profession used by Warlocks and Mages around the world. If you are reading this, you likely already know that tailoring is the profession that makes cloth items. Well, what can you do to make gold with tailoring?

There are many ways to make gold as a tailor, but I am just going to list some of my favorite methods.

1) Shirts. Yes, shirts. The things that have no stats. There are a great number of them that you can pick up as a tailor and they generally all make a nice mark up on the material costs. I have noticed that the Swashbuckler shirts seem to sell very well.

2) Leg armor. Tailoring classes make the caster leg armor that all of the other classes want. This is a pretty liquid market and you can sell several a day for decent profits. Dont forget the lower end Cataclysm leg armors as many players are hesitant to throw down a large chunk of change for the epic leg armors.

3) Bags. Specifically Netherweave bags. They sell for above material cost and are still the go to bag for new alts. The best part is you will often sell several at a time. A dont really bother with the upper level bags.

4) Low Level Rare items. There are several rare quality low level items that a tailor can make. They sell for significantly more than the materials. Grab the mats off the auction house and profit.

More news from 4.3

Patch 4.3+
The new 5 man dungeons will help to introduce the Deathwing Raid.
The current plan with the Deathwing raid is to have it all available immediately upon release.
The Deathwing raid will be smaller than Ulduar with many phases or encounters with Deathwing.
Patch 4.4 will bring a world event before the next expansion.
The next expansion should be released with a "meaningful difference" in the release timeline compared to previous expansions.

Future Changes and Features
Paid Guild Transfers are still in the works.
Battle.net account wide achievements are still in the works.
Armor dyes are unlikely to be included in the game, but mount customization is a possibility.
Class Quests are unlikely to return due to the amount of time it takes to design and implement them.
No gold sinks are coming soon because of the large variance in the amount of gold players have.
A real money Auction House is not planned for WoW.

Other Notes
RealID LFD grouping was originally going to be paid because of the similarity to Paid Character Transfers, but they decided it was the right thing for the game to offer it for free.
Cross realm RealID grouping is going to be expanded to cover Battlegrounds as well. Depending on how well that works it could be expanded to raids and rated battlegrounds.
There has been a drop in gold farming because phishing and hacking accounts is more profitable.
New players are still having trouble with the first 30 minutes and five levels of the game, more hand holding is coming for very basic concepts like moving, questing, fighting, and looting.
Blizzard did a lot to save time while getting Cataclysm finished, but ended up happy with the final result.
The shared 10 and 25 man lockout has had both positive and negative effects, it solved the need to do both every week but removed some extra content that could be done every week. Some changes will be made in the future to make everyone happier with the solution.

So, there is some more news. I knew that the 5 mans would likely be similar to the Lich King 5 mans they added around the time Icecrown was released.

Having Battle.net achievments would be awesome. You could do certain things on certain characters that you would prefer to do it on. If you have a character you enjoy PvPing on, you can still get the achievments for your main.

They are making the starting zones easier.....because mobs that dont aggro on you, built in quest helper, and ridiculous health and mana regen out of combat were not enough! It really doest make much difference to me, but if it can help a new player then why not?

Getting Ready for Transmorgification

This is what I have been doing lately. I have run some of the old school raids on some of my characters to attempt to get some cool looking gear with mixed results. I think I have gotten two tier pieces in 3 raids (a piece of T1 on my warrior and the T2 helmet on my Druid), but have gotten some cool looking weapons and shields. I have run MC once and BWL twice.

I also decided I am going to try and deck out the purple faux Justice Set from Outlands on my Paladin.

BWL was pretty much a piece of cake. I am pretty sure we could have two manned it if not for Razorgore. You have to kill all of the eggs or you can not move on, even if you kill him before he explodes everyone. We 6 manned it the first time and 4/5 manned it the second time. It takes about 35-45 minutes.

I plan on running these raids on a fairly regular basis for the gear. I also did a Karazhan run and we did a 4 man Naxx 10.

What have you been doing to get ready for Transmorgification?

Yay Heroics!

Woohoo. Three Heroics in two days. I havent run this many heroics in months.

The first one I did was tanking on my Warrior. Also attenting were my wife on her Boomkin, my two friends (Husband and Wife) on their Hunter and Ret Pally, and my sister playing her Holy Paly.

I should note that my wife and my friend's wife are both very unexperienced in Heroic. How bad was it? Not bad at all! We one shotted every boss but the Foe Reaper 5000. We got him in around 3 attempts after we got hit with a fire elemental during the enrage phase on the first two tries.

I was actually very surprised that we one shotted the last three bosses without much problem at all. Especially considering that two of our players had never done any of those bosses.

Then last night, we ran two Heroics. My wife was not present, so it was the Hunter and Ret Paladin while I healed on my Resto Druid. We grabbed two players from my guild including the best Heroic tank EVAR.

The first instance was Heroic Stonecore and we had a couple of issue, especially with trash. Now that I think of it, we one shotted every boss, but we had a number of issues dying on trash when standing in whirlwinds and getting an extra group or two.

After that, we decided on one more Heroic and got Throne of Tides. I used to hate this instance so much. This time, we basically walked through it no problem. Again, we had more issues with trash than we did with bosses.

Overall, it was actually very fun running these Heroics. I think that one of the main reasons was that I was not having to deal with randoms.

I think there may be more Heroic running on the Horizon.

Big News with 4.3!!!

Patch 4.3 - Deathwing, Transmogrifier, Void Storage
Tom Chilton (Kalgan) answered a couple of questions from Gamona.de on Patch 4.3, and we got a bunch of very interesting news out of it. Patch 4.3 will feature:

New Raid - The Deathwing raid, making it very likely to be the last patch before the next expansion.
3 new 5-man instances - Including one in the Caverns of Time. (War of the Ancients was mentioned as a cataclysm instance a few years ago, but a lot of things have changed since then, who knows!)
The Transmogrifier NPC, which will let you change the appearance of any armor piece on you, while retaining the stats of your current gear. (= T12 stats, but with the Tier 2 look!)
Players won't be able to change the appearance of their armor into another armor type or class armor set, and you might have to own the armor before you can use it to swap the appearance of your existing armor.
The Void Storage is a new type of bank where players will be able to store their old armors in order to free up space in their regular bank.
The Abyssal Maw dungeon is gone for the moment, the storyline wasn't convincing enough/fitting.

This is from MMO champion.

A couple of thoughts on this. I am glad for more 5 mans. I really enjoy 5 man instances and running them with my friends. I imagine that we may see some like the Icecrown ones that will have us encounter Deathwing.

The coolest things to me are the transmorgification and the Void Storage.

I will be really glad to change the look of my gear. It will be awesome. I may have to go farm a Bulwark of Azzinoth now since I think it is the coolest shield in the game. I can already see myself rocking the Suneater as my tanking weapon. This has so many great possibilities.

Another thing that would be cool is if you could buy skins with gold. With the inflation of gold, it would be good to have some kind of extra gold sink.

This has all the makings to be AWESOME!!!!

You are not prepared!

I have been running a lot of low level instances recently. It has been super fun as I have been doing with two of my bestest friends and my very bestest friend (my wife).

I love the way that the quests are just sitting there for you to pick up right inside the instance. After the first random of the day, I will pick and choose ones we havent done just for the quests.

The one thing that these instances dont get you ready for....are instances.

Seriously. There were several times where about 3-4 groups were accidentally pulled in an instance. It was somewhat tough, but I kept the group alive. There was one in particular in Live Strat where we got three groups of mobs including a green abomination and then the dumb ass boomkin pug decided he was going to open a mailbox at the same time.

The problem is, that this wont really fly in a Cataclysm Dungeon/Heroic. If you go into one of those without executing very well, you are going to have a very rough time of it.

I wouldnt mind if they nerfed cata dungeons even more. They are no longer relevant content and are just used to generate valor and justice. I would love to see it revert back to the way it was in Wrath where you could chain pull the instance willy nilly. Thats just me though.

Weekend Update

Had a pretty good weekend in WoW and got to play with my wife and friends.

I gained a level on my Hunter with my new and shiny spirit bear! That animal is a BEAST. I had to come up with a fitting intimidating name that will strike fear into the heart of mobs around the world of warcraft. I named him Bernstein.

I also gained a level on my long time bank toon and now level 65 rogue. He has been an on again off again project for a very long time. I went ahead and picked up the leather heirloom head and cloak for him. He actually does pretty decent DPS as well! Being able to stealth and regular run speed is a huge plus.

The most fun I had this weekend was in two parts.

First, my wife's B-Day is coming up so I wanted to give he an early gift. I took her over to the area between stormwind and elwynn with the water fall. I set out the romantic picnic and a cake! Then I gave her a bundle of spring flower as well as a nicely wrapped gift. Which was a Vial of the Sands. Now she has one on both of her main toons.

I also had a ton of fun running dungeons on my priest with my wife on her Hunter and out two friends. We ended up running a bunch of them, and since we are all in the same guild we got the guild challenge credit!

We had a lot of fun. With two newbie hunters there was much mispulling and many shenanigans. We only wiped once and that was after the instance ended. We had defeated Stratholme- Front Gate and were going back for Forresten Hearthsinger or whatever his name is. We figured...meh the mobs are tied up with Argent guys now. Lets pull him. We ended up with about 30 mobs on us. I guess you wouldnt consider it a wipe since my wife actually survived with a well timed Feign Death.

Anyways, it was quite a fun weekend and I am still enjoying my Disc Priest alot. I am 46 now and Outland will be right around the corner.

I Found It!

What you may ask? The ability to play a priest and actually enjoy it.

I have been leveling him with a couple of friends who are playing their Warrior and Hunter. This is now my highest level priest ever at 42.

What has made me enjoy it? Well the first thing is the bubbles that you have as a Dicc priest. I always thought that this was a unique and cool way to heal.

The second piece of awesome? The fact that I can heal people by killing baddies with smite! And it is a smart heal that heals for a signifcant amount.

Not only does this help instances go by faster, but at lower levels it make them a bit more interesting than bubble and sit.

I knew there had to be something cool about priests, and I found it!

I picked up a dual spec and grabbed shadow. Can someone help me out with a rotation for a Shadow Priest?

Hope you all have a good weekend!

Lucky....

I consider myself very lucky when it comes to WoW. This is not because I always win rolls on stuff I like or always make the right decision at the right time.

It is because I have a wife who plays with me and has even gotten to enjoy the game despite hating it originally.

Just one of the many reasons I love my wife. Always the giver.

I know a lot of people have a lot of issues with their SOs when it comes to WoW and games in general. I was reading on WoWInsider about people that would "sneak" WoW. Wait for their SO to got to bed then sneak on and play. And the SO thinks that they quit the game.

What is your SO/WoW relationship like?

Wheelin' and Dealin'

One of the best things you can do as a gold maker is make relationships or ask for deals.

For a jewelcrafter, it may be finding a farmer who is willing to sell ore to you directly. Usually they are willing to give you a good price for buying all of it. It also keeps that ore from going to your competition. It is a win-win.

Another thing you can do is try to buy out your competitors if they have strange posting patterns.

I have a JC on my server that only deals in red gems. He will post around 40 of each cut, in stacks of 1,2,3,4,and 5. He does not deal in other gems. The other thing he does is instantly undercut down to 125 if red gems are higher.

I sent him a letter to see if he had the other color gems for sale. Apparently he got a ton of ore and prospected it for cheap prior to 4.2. He then vendored everything that wasnt an Inferno Ruby or Carnelia (DOH!).

Well, I am currently trying to work out a deal to buy the rest of his 400 plus red gem stockpile. This should put me in a good postion to make tons of profit if I get them for a nice price. Without asking, he would have just continued as is. Now I may be able to make a nice mint off of those gems.

This ties into the "Know your role and shut your mouth" post a couple of days ago. Had I been a dick to this guy about his tactics, there is no way a deal would have been possible.

What is Your Favorite Gold Trick or Tip?

Everyone has a way that they really enjoy making gold. This may be because they make a lot of sales, or it may just be plain clever.

My two favorites certainly have to be Jewelcrafting since this is where I make a ton of my gold.

The second for me is recipe flipping. This is a market that a lot of people don't really get fully involved in. I grab very nice underpriced recipes and relist them for significantly higher on a regular basis. I have made at least 50k profit off of flipping cata level recipes alone.

What kind of things do you like to do to make gold?

Know Your Role and Shut Your Mouth!

So, this is a post about whispering your competitors in a hostile or less than friendly way. Don't do it.

Sure, getting undercut is annoying, but it is just the cost of business. What happens when you message someone to be a smartass? You make it personal.

You just turned a competitor into someone who is going to do everything they can to piss you off more and get you out of the market. That is assuming that they are like me.

I am going to make my gold. That is a given. If you are going to be a rude little twat to me, I am going to make you eat a bowl of dick. You will be undercut every chance I get.

There are only a few reasons you should ever talk to your competition:

1) You are wanting to work together.
2) You are just bullshitting and sharing information
3) You want to build a "friendship" so that they will be less cutthroat.

You may notice taht all of these things benefit you...as they should. Never communicate out of anger. You will end up getting more angry because you just revealed to that person how they can really push your buttons.

So as the title says....know you role and shut your mouth. Or lose profits.

Diablo 3: Can Use AH to sell things for REAL MONEY

From MMO Champion. This is nuts.

What is the Diablo III auction house system?
Acquiring epic new gear for your characters has always been a big part of the Diablo experience. Because of this, players have found a number of different ways to trade and otherwise obtain items both within and outside of the game. Many of these methods were inconvenient and either tedious (for example, repeatedly advertising for a desired trade in Battle.net chat channels and waiting for responses) or unsafe (e.g., giving credit card information to third-party trading sites). With Diablo III, we’re introducing a powerful auction house system that will provide a safe, fun, and easy-to-use way for players to buy and sell the loot they find in the game, such as weapons, armor, and runestones. Two different versions of the auction house will be available in Diablo III: one based on in-game gold, which players acquire through their adventures, and one based on real-world currency.

What’s the difference between the gold-based auction house and the currency-based auction house?
The gold-based auction house uses in-game gold for purchases and sales. With the currency-based auction house, players will be able to conduct these transactions using actual currency from an authorized payment method or from funds that have been added to their Battle.net account. Players can choose to participate in whichever version of the auction house they prefer, on a per-transaction basis.

How does the auction house system work?
Players can open the auction house interface from anywhere in the game to make purchases or list items for sale. Items can be sold from the shared stash (storage shared among all the characters on your Battle.net account) or from any individual character’s inventory. When posting the item, the seller picks whether it will be sold in the gold-based auction house or the currency-based auction house. The item is then held by the auction house system until the listing expires or a purchase is made. Items that are not sold are returned to the seller’s shared stash, and items that are sold are delivered to the winning bidder’s shared stash. In either case, the auction house system will deduct a nominal fixed transaction fee from the seller, the amount of which is determined by whether or not the item was sold (see below). For the currency-based auction house, players will have a few different options for how to pay for item purchases and receive funds for item sales, as discussed elsewhere in this FAQ. There may be differences in how this system will work in different regions of the world. We’ll provide further details at a later date.

How is the transaction fee determined?
A nominal fixed transaction fee will be deducted from the seller for each item listed in the auction house. This fee consists of a fixed charge to list the item, which is assessed whether or not the item is successfully sold, and an additional fixed charge that is assessed only if the item is sold. Because the listing portion of the fee is charged even if the item doesn’t sell, it will be in the seller’s interest to list items he or she believes other players will be interested in, and to do so at a competitive price. Specific details related to the transaction fee for the currency-based auction house will vary by region and will be announced at a later date.

Please note that we plan to waive the listing portion of the fee for a limited number of transactions per account. In other words, for these transactions, the seller will only pay a transaction fee if the item is successfully sold, and that fee will not include the listing charge. We’ll have further details on this as well at a later date.

Why are you creating a currency-based version of the auction house?
Our goal with all of our games is to ensure players have a highly enjoyable, rewarding, and secure experience. Acquiring items has always been an important part of the Diablo series, but the previous games have not had a robust, centralized system for facilitating trades, and as a result players have turned to inconvenient and potentially unsafe alternatives, such as third-party real-money-trading organizations. Many of the transactions between players and these organizations led to a poor player experience and countless customer-service issues involving scams and item/account theft, to name a few. To that end, we wanted to create a convenient, powerful, and fully integrated tool to meet the demand of players who wished to purchase or sell items for real-world currency, and who would likely have turned to a less-secure third-party service for this convenience.

How will the currency-based auction house work?
Players will be able to make purchases in the currency-based auction house using a registered form of payment attached to their Battle.net account. As with other popular online-purchase services, players will also have the option to charge up their Battle.net account with a balance of funds that can be drawn from for purchases of any digital product available through Battle.net -- this includes not only auction house items but also things like World of Warcraft subscription time and paid services, to name a few examples. On the flipside, when players sell an item in the currency-based auction house, the proceeds of the sale are deposited into their Battle.net account and can then be used as described above. Note that this process might be different for certain regions; we’ll provide further region-specific details as we get closer to launch.

Can players choose to get cash from currency-based auction house sales, instead of having the proceeds deposited into their Battle.net account?
Yes, as an advanced feature, players will have the option of attaching an account with an approved third-party payment service to their Battle.net account. Once this has been completed, proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house can be deposited into their third-party payment service account. “Cashing out” would then be handled through the third-party payment service. Note that this process will be subject to applicable fees charged by Blizzard and the third-party payment service. Also, any proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house that have been deposited into the Battle.net account will not be transferrable to the third-party payment service account. Not all regions will support this advanced feature at launch. Region-specific details, as well as details regarding which third-party payment services will be supported and the fee that Blizzard will charge for the cash-out process, will all be provided at a later date.

Is the currency-based version of the auction house optional?
Yes, the currency-based auction house is available as an option for players who wish to purchase or sell Diablo III items for real money. Players are also able to buy and sell items through the gold-based auction house, and they can trade items with each other as well through direct character-to-character in-game trading.

Why would I want to pay real money to buy or sell in-game items?
Acquiring items has always been a core part of the Diablo series' appeal. With the previous Diablo games, many players have shown a great interest in buying, selling, or exchanging items for their characters using real-world currency, turning to potentially unsafe avenues to accomplish this goal. The currency-based version of the auction house provides players with an easy-to-use, Blizzard-sanctioned way to collect money for items obtained while playing Diablo III. In addition, it helps protect players from scams and disreputable third-party sites by providing a secure, in-game method to search for and purchase items posted by other players that are a perfect fit for their character and play style.

The currency-based auction house is completely optional. Players who aren't interested in paying real money for items will still be able to rely on items they acquire through their own adventures, and they'll also be able to trade with friends and use the full-featured gold-based auction house.

Can I play on a server without a currency-based version of the auction house?
We want to provide a secure, fun environment for our players to purchase and sell in-game items using gold or real money and have no plans to divide the community. Players are free to participate in the gold-based auction house or the currency-based auction house, or to opt out of using any of the auction houses at all, progressing through Diablo III using only the items they obtain through their own adventures or direct trade with other players.

Does Blizzard plan to post weapons, armor, and other such items for sale in the currency-based version of the auction house?
The currency-based auction house is a place for players to purchase or sell items they’ve obtained within the game. Blizzard does not plan to post items that affect gameplay, such as gear or character-enhancing runestones, for sale in the auction house.

Will Blizzard sell anything directly through the auction house?
We don't have any plans at this time to post items for sale in the auction house.

Does the currency-based auction house signify a shift in Blizzard’s business and revenue model?
We’ve always tailored our business models to match what we’ve felt would be most appropriate and effective for each game and in each region, and that’s the case with Diablo III as well. The item-based nature of Diablo gameplay has always lent itself to an active trade-based ecosystem, and a significant part of this trade has been conducted through unsecure third-party organizations. This has led to numerous customer-service and game-experience issues that we’ve needed to account for. Our primary goal with the Diablo III auction house system is for it to serve as the foundation for a player-driven economy that’s safe, fun, and accessible for everyone.

What’s Blizzard’s cut?
As with other online auction sites and real-world auction houses, our fee structure will vary by region. However, we plan to collect a nominal fixed transaction fee for each item listed in the auction house. This fee consists of a fixed charge to list the item, which is assessed whether or not the item is successfully sold, and an additional fixed charge that is assessed only if the item is sold. The listing portion of the fee, which helps encourage sensible listing prices and discourage the mass posting of items that are very low quality or would be of little interest to other players, will be waived for a limited number of transactions per account. For players who opt to have the proceeds of their auction house sales go to their third-party payment service account instead of to their Battle.net account, Blizzard will collect a separate “cash-out” fee. Specific details regarding these fees will be announced at a later date.

Why would I even want to use the gold-based auction house?
We recognize that not all players would prefer or have the means to participate in the currency-based auction house, and it was important to us to provide these players with a full-featured alternative.

Can we buy gold from the currency-based auction house?
Players will be able to buy and sell gold through the currency-based auction house at whatever the current market price is, as established by the player community.

If I no longer need an item I bought in the auction house, can I relist it in the auction house?
Yes. Once you've purchased an item you can do anything with it that you could if you had acquired it through your own adventures, whether that be using it yourself, or, after a cool-down period, trading it to another character or relisting it on either the gold-based or currency-based auction house. In fact, you can generally do any combination of these things -- for example, you can purchase an item in the auction house, use it for a while, and then relist it or trade it to another character. Aside from certain quest items, there will be very few (if any) items that will be “soulbound” to your character and therefore untradable. Please note that the duration of the cool-down period mentioned above will be discussed at a later date.


AUCTION HOUSE FUNCTIONALITY

What items can be traded in Diablo III?
Nearly everything that drops on the ground, including gold, can be traded with other players directly or through the auction house system. Aside from certain quest items, there will be very few (if any) items that will be “soulbound” to your character and therefore untradable. We are also planning to allow players to buy and sell characters in the auction house at some point in the future and will have more details to share on that at a later date.

What is "smart searching"?
When players launch the auction house interface, they’ll be able to select any Diablo III character associated with their Battle.net account. The "smart search" feature will assess which item slots have available upgrades and will sort items available in the auction house based on which upgrades would be most beneficial to the character. You can also search for specific stats to match the requirements of a particular character build.

How does bidding work?
Players will be able to place a current bid as well as a maximum bid if they wish to engage in automatic bidding. In addition, they’ll be able to check the status of their bids on the "Currently Winning" page and the "Outbid" page in the auction house interface.

Can I buyout items that I want to purchase immediately?
Yes, the Diablo III auction houses will support a buyout feature as well as standard bids.

How do I pay for items?
For the gold-based auction house, purchases will be made using in-game gold. For the currency-based auction house, players can make purchases using a registered form of payment attached to their Battle.net account. As with other popular online-purchase services, players will also have the option to charge up their Battle.net account with a balance of funds that can be drawn from for purchasing items in the currency-based auction house. Note that this process might be different for certain regions; we’ll provide further region-specific details as we get closer to launch.

How do I receive the items I’ve won?
After winning an auction, the item will be available to pick up through the built-in auction house interface in the Diablo III client. Players will then be able to immediately send that item to their shared stash (storage shared among all the characters on a Battle.net account) or repost the item in the auction house after a cool-down period. The duration of the cool-down period will be discussed at a later date.

How do I sell items?
From the auction house interface, players will be able to select items from their shared stash or from a specific character's inventory. They will then be able to post items for sale by listing a starting bid and buyout price.

How do I cash out from the currency-based auction house?
As an advanced feature, players will have the option of attaching an account with an approved third-party payment service to their Battle.net account. Once this has been completed, proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house can be deposited into their third-party payment service account. “Cashing out” would then be handled through the third-party payment service. Note that this process will be subject to applicable fees charged by Blizzard and the third-party payment service. Also, any proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house that have been deposited into the Battle.net account will not be transferrable to the third-party payment service account. Not all regions will support this advanced feature at launch. Region-specific details, as well as details regarding which third-party payment services will be supported and the fee that Blizzard will charge for the cash-out process, will all be provided at a later date.

Will buying or selling items in the auction house reveal my identity?
No. All player transactions in the gold-based and currency-based auction houses will be anonymous, and neither your real name nor your character name will be revealed to other players.

Will there be a mobile or Web-based auction house?
We're always on the lookout for opportunities to enhance the game experience and keep our community connected to our games through the Web or mobile devices. However, we do not have any plans to share along those lines at this time.

When will this be available for testing?
We'll share more information on our auction house testing plans as we get closer to launch.


REGIONAL AUCTION HOUSE DETAILS

Which regions will have currency-based auction house support?
We plan to roll out the currency-based version of the auction house in as many regions as possible with the launch of Diablo III. In regions where the currency-based auction house will not be available, players will still have access to a gold-based auction house. We'll share more details in the future.

Will there be separate auction houses in each region? Will I be allowed to bid on items from players outside my own region?
Due to various factors, including technology, language, and currency, there will be multiple separate auction houses serving different player communities around the world. We’ll share specific details on how the auction houses will work for each region as we get closer to launch.

If I live in Australia/New Zealand/Southeast Asia, what server will I play Diablo III on?
As with StarCraft II, players who purchase the Australia/New Zealand/Southeast Asia version of Diablo III will have their own regional servers, offering lower latency and more action during peak hours. While we encourage players to play on these servers, we recognize that many have longstanding friendships with North American players and would like to continue playing with them. Because of this, we're again giving Australia/New Zealand/ Southeast Asia gamers access to both regions' servers so they can choose where they'd prefer to play.

How does this impact the items I have purchased in the auction house?
Auction house purchases are bound to the servers in the region in which they're bought. Any items acquired on the Australia/New Zealand/Southeast Asia servers, in-game or otherwise, are bound to those servers and are not transferrable to the North American servers (and vice versa). Please keep this in mind when making purchases in the auction house.

What currencies will be available? What currency will items in the auction house be viewed in? Can players purchase items using local credit cards or bank accounts?
Our goal is to make the auction house experience in each region as seamless as possible for players, and we are currently exploring various currency and payment options to help achieve that goal. We’ll provide further details as we get closer to launch.


AUCTION HOUSE GAMEPLAY ISSUES

Will I be able to use third-party mods to track auction prices?
For a variety of gameplay and security reasons, we will not be supporting bots or mods in Diablo III, and they’ll be expressly prohibited by our terms of use for the game.

Can Hardcore-mode characters use the currency-based auction house?
No. Hardcore characters will only have the option to buy and sell items together with other Hardcore characters via a separate "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house; they will not be able to use the currency-based auction house. Hardcore mode is designed as an optional experience for players who enjoy the sense of constant peril that comes with the possibility of permanent death for a character. All of a Hardcore character’s items are forever lost upon that character’s death, so to avoid the risk of a player spending real money on items that could then be permanently lost when the character dies, we decided restrict the use of the currency-based auction house in Hardcore mode.

If my character dies in Hardcore mode, will I lose the items that I purchased in the "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house for that character?
Yes. Again, Hardcore-mode characters will only have access to a "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house, not the currency-based auction house, and will not be able to trade with non-Hardcore characters. Hardcore is an optional mode designed for players who enjoy playing with the risk of permanently losing their character if the character dies, and that includes the items they acquired with that character.

Can I just buy the most powerful items and breeze through the game?
Items will be level-restricted, meaning your character won't be able to use an item until he or she is at the appropriate level for that item.


AUCTION HOUSE CUSTOMER SUPPORT

What happens if a player does not receive a purchased item?
The auction process is automated, but if a player purchases an item and for some reason does not receive it, he or she will be able to contact our customer service team to look into the issue.

What happens if there is a patch and the item I purchased is altered?
It's important for us to ensure that Diablo III remains balanced and fun for years after launch. To that end, it may be necessary to change stats or alter abilities of items from time to time. It’s very important to note that Blizzard will not be providing refunds or making other accommodations if a purchased item is later altered in a patch. Given this, it's up to players to determine whether they're comfortable purchasing items in the currency-based auction house.

Someone bought an item on my account without my permission. Can I get a refund?
Please note that account sharing will be forbidden in Diablo III's Terms of Use. In cases of compromise, our customer service team will look into the situation and determine the appropriate course of action.

I accidentally lost or dropped an item I just purchased -- can I get a refund?
No. After a purchase is made, players will be responsible for what they do with the item.

How will you address bots or cheaters?
We take cheating very seriously, and we've designed Diablo III and Battle.net to include measures to detect and prevent unfair play. In addition, we will have anti-cheating policies in place and will take action to address any issues as they arise.