Unified Server Auction House
Unless you live under a golden rock, you probably heard the news that's echoing throughout the gold making community, that Alliance and Horde Auction Houses will be combined in 6.0 (
source).
An interesting decision by Blizzard, kind of a curveball, but as far as gold making potential, to me it means a lot more venues to make gold. For example currently I have 8 or so max profession toons Horde side and 1 Alliance side. On that 1 Alliance toon I also post xmog/leveling gear, and make a pretty sizable income. Now all my profit venues are consolidated, and I can run all of my operations (mainly) from Horde side without penalty. I think it will benefit the AH Campers a little bit too much, but only time will tell.
It does bring up some interesting questions however. For example, will we now be able to trade and chat cross faction? I mean we basically can as is with Battle.net, but as someone who purchases mats from the AH from one toon, then ships them off to alts, it seems silly that my Alli alt that uses the same AH as my Horde alt has to purchase seperate mats, since I cannot sell to myself, or that I can buy GIO from a farmer off the AH, but cannot ask them to COD me batches, which to me is a bit restrictive. To me the change is a good one in general, but it will be one of the many factors that are changing the face of gold making in WoW indefinitely, and will be interesting to see it unfold.
Lvl 25 Guilds
Were you someone (quite like myself) who was holding on to a level 25 guild as an investment to sell in the future? Surely you've heard the bad news that guild levels will basically not exist in WoD,
read the full Blue Comment here.
Community
I can't say I'm completely surprised they have removed this feature,
but I would not have predicted it. In Cataclysm they added guild levels to give guilds a sense of community and rewards for doing things together. I'd say that short term, they accomplished their goals. When every guild started @ 1, and guilds were pushing every day to hit the guild experience cap, and try to get the first lvl 25 guild on the server, there was a lot of community built up around guilds that had previously been lacking at the end of Wrath.
Since then however, level 25 guilds have held a significant advantage over level 1 guilds, being more desirable to levelers and max levels alike with their bonuses. So much so, that Blizzard decided not to add any additional guild levels in MoP. That was the first warning sign that guild levels were indeed a failure. They've stuck around this long, but times are a-changing!
SELL!
If it's not completely obvious, dump those level 25 guilds you've been holding on to. They'll mean nothing in the long run, and hopefully you can snag someone who doesn't know about the changes. They're also removing the passive income from guilds acquired through non-group activities, so it will cut down on that revenue option, but to me and many other gold makers, it wasn't a huge bonus anyway, and mostly not worth the hassle of maintaining.
I personally have 4 level 25 guilds that I am currently using as storage that I am going to try to liquidate in the upcoming weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to easily, but only time will tell. I bought them all cheap, so I think at bare minimum I'll be able to break even, but hopefully I'll be able to turn a profit as well.
Cheers,
Phat Lewts
@PhatLewtsGold
PhatLewtsGold