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[General] AH value of fish

  1. Yoco <Salty>, 1 year ago:

    I just saw El's new pages about Valuable Fish, and would like to start a discussion about them. I already submitted the message below as comment, but thought it might be a good idea to post it on these forums too.

    Very nice guides indeed, thank you!

    However, I have my doubts on the values you have put in the "median auction value" - I would like to suggest you to remove that column, or replace it by some kind of abstract 'index' that can be used to deduce the relative value of cooked fish, but not any absolute value. The reason is simple: the values of auctioned goods vary wildly over different realms, and even are different between horde and alliance AHs. Also prices are not stable, but fluctuate - possibly a lot. If there were a smallish margin around the value that would be encountered in practice, then showing real prices would make sense (after taking a median, of course). But reality is different ...

    As an example of the problem, consider El's price for cooked deviate fish (savory deviate delight) - 70s in the list. On my alliance realm I sell these normally for 3g a piece, and on my horde realm at 1g50-2g. Both prices are rather far away from your "70s". reasonable prices for stacks are sometimes different depending on the stack size. Or a different example: I have been selling furious crawdads (raw) at a going rate of 4-5g a piece during the past months (the raw crawdads sold for more than the cooked ones, presumably because they can be used to level cooking to 375). In the past weeks, since the arrival of achievements, the price has crashed down to 50s-1g a piece, because many people are trying to get the crawdad pet, and get loads of crawdads as 'waste' product. The prices are not stable.

    I think that listing any single price value is not going to be very helpful for these two reasons (realm differences and value evolution over time). Listed prices will be taken be many as "this is the price I should sell my stuff at", ignoring (and possibly upsetting) their realm economy.

  2. el <Nat Pagle's Love Child>, 1 year ago:

    Fair comments, Yoco. Fish prices vary quite a lot between realms, and over time.

    I added rough prices, because it is a logical question: If these fish are valuable, how valuable? Silver, gold, thousands of gold? The aim has always been to give an approximate value, rather than a precise recommendation. At various times I've used ranges based on my own experience, and values from database sites. But I accept that the values are potentially very misleading.

    At the start I tried to convey why a fish might be valuable. So that an experienced player could then price items based on a the knowledge that a level 6..7..80 alchemist would need a fish, so would be prepared to pay a proportion of their earning potential (meaning, gold not copper). That's almost Warren Buffett logic. Understand what it's worth, not what other people have priced it at.

    I suspect that for most players, that's just far to complicated, even for people that have been in Azeroth for years. We have more auction house "trend riders". The commodity speculators: Wait till the middle of the week, then sell your fish - because demand for fish-based items traditionally rose after mid-week instance resets, while supply tends to rise at the weekend, when more people have time to fish. But there aren't many of these people about either.

    It seems most are looking for today's price: Or, find the cheapest auction house listing and price 1% below it. In some cases this has become like using vendors. Auctioneer (the addon) states a price, and one hits "post". So the main question becomes whether a fish is worth putting up for auction or not? That decision does not need detailed price information.

    So... I don't know. I'm inclined to say some indication of price is needed, but perhaps it should be a much broader range, with a bigger caveat about checking your own realm?

    I've not yet tried to estimate WotLK prices. Since everything will change in the next month, I will review this again later. Other thoughts/comments/suggestions most welcome in the meantime.

    (On future price changes: Overall price inflation is at least 50% more than patch 2.4, probably a doubling of earning potential from the start of TBC to the start of WotLK. But many formerly valuable fish will become (almost) worthless, or see a huge drop in demand. Most of the new basic buff foods will sell for a couple of gold - roughly twice what the "easier to catch" buff foods were worth at the start TBC. Dishes that use Northern Spices could become exceptionally valuably, particularly if your realm has a lot of competitive raiders: Approximately 10-20 Northern Spices can be gained each day from the Dalaran cooking daily. Each of the best buff foods use at least 1 Northern Spice. So in practice, that's less than 20 wipes per person per day, fully buffed. In the first month or so, there will be a lot of wipes, and no stockpiles of spices to draw on.)

  3. GormanGhaste <Low Sodium>, 1 year ago:

    I think there Should be a median auction value column. Anyone who sells things regularly on the AH understands price fluctuation, and knows it's just a ballpark figure. Even so, people who like to supplement their income with fishing would like an idea of which fish are likely to make them the most money, and an average value is the simplest way to show that.

  4. Utopia <Salty>, 1 year ago:

    Perhaps it would be possible to insert links to (for example) http://www.wowecon.com/ where readers can just see the overall median price,then find their realm prices,for a more detailed breakdown.

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