alt characters for auction house

[nidanone]

Hey guys,

I've been reading here and there that it's a good idea to have an alt character to put at an auction house to help make some money. Being kind of new at this can anyone explain in easy terms how this works?

I assume I create a new character, but since I can only play one character at a time, how does this actually work? Does this mean I can mail things to a character who is not currently in play?


I've also heard that there are some benefits of giving this alt character "enchantment" but I don't quite understand how that helps.


Also, in terms of creating this alt character, should I consider a specific race or class? My main character is a Night Elf Rogue, and my chosen profession is skinning/leatherworking.


Thanks for any tips or explanation about this.

NidanOne

[Abeezil]

You can have any race or class (I find gnomes a little short to move well in a crowd). And you simply logout to go from the character you're playing to that one. I'm not sure about the enchanting 'thing'. Maybe someone else can help with that. Having a character in the AH all the time who does only that does seem to work well.

[nidanone]

Thanks, I guess I'm just having trouble understanding how my main character interacts with my alt one. Do they mail items back and forth? Or trade items?

Or does the alt character try to buy-low / sell-high to make some money, and then give send money to the main character as needed?

[dgrampa]

Yes you mail items back and forth. The mail is instant between toons on the same account. So instead of going to the AH with your main to sell greens or anything else you just mail it to your AH alt. Then log in on your alt and put it on the AH.

The enchanting is because many green items are worth more when you disenchant them and sell the enchanting materials on the AH. Problem is, the higher the item level, the higher level your enchanter has to be to disenchant them. So once you start getting items that are too high level for your alt to disenchant, you will need to level your alt to keep up. Just something to keep in mind.

[rottentomato]

level both to 35, mail items between your alt and your main, spend the time running around doing quests and whatever, hit up an inn before log out or to vendor trash and mail yourself green items to disenchant.


buying low/selling high works well if you know the market and the spread you can use to effectively do this...buying during the week sometimes items are higher priced, and weekends sometimes sees the inflation...depends on the item and server...just watch for a while

[det]

I'd say create a character as AH toon that interests you class and race wise, that way you can always pop out of the city and kill a few mobs, do a few quests when you rest your main. Who knows, that AH alt can be fun and you create a new AH alt. (I am on my fourth now ^^)

Apart from that....what everybody else said :)

[Renata]

The enchanting thing was far more useful when disenchanting was not level restricted. It used to be that a level 5 character (you have always had to be at least level 5 to pick up enchanting) could DE anything sent to them. However, they changed it so that you have to be of a certain enchanting level, and thus, a certain normal level, to DE them. For example, if you only have an enchanting level of 1, you can only DE items that are level 15 or lower. Since a level 5 can only get 75 enchanting skill max (unless you're a blood elf, and then you can get a maximum of 85), the highest level items your "auction mule" would be able to disenchant without levelling up is 30.

As suggested, if you get your auction mule up to level 35, the mule could DE anything up to and including level 70 epic items, if so desired.

...Ren

[Baboon]

Yeah if you want to disenchant stuff for profit, it's better to have it on your main character, also because of the fact that you will be able to dis your own used items (you can't mail those anymore).

But leveling enchanting is pretty expensive, so there goes the benefit a little. I'd say for a first character, get either two gather professions, or one and enchanting. For example mining makes you money so enchanting will be easy to level. Only level enchanting when you can't disenchant your own items anymore.

Professions like Alchemy and Tailoring/LW/BS are really only needed for endgame (lvl 70)

[clevins]

Pretty much what everyone else said. The only things you can't mail are items that are soulbound.

The idea is to not spend time moving your main character from someplace that's very far away from an AH to the Ah just to sell a few things. Find a mailbox, mail the items to your AH toon.

As your AH toon gets some gold, they can start playing the AH. This generally means using an addon like auctioneer. You scan the AH so you can see average prices for an item. Then, if you see that item on sale for below that, you can buy it and list if for the higher price. Depending on how much you like doing this, you can make a lot of gold at it, esp once you have enough capital to invest. See 10 stacks of something that usually sells for 8g per stack on sale for 4g per? Buy them all, relist them for 8g per. That's the market price, so people are used to spending it and they'll likely sell. And you've made 4g X 10 minus the AH cut... or about 35g. For nothing more than a few minutes work.

[xDarkDrifterx]

Your bank / AH alt is basicaly a mule (some people have a seperate bank mule and AH alt but that's up to you).

__________

Mule - noun - A character created for the sole purpose of holding items for a "real" character; in certain games, many players have a "main" character, whom they actually play, and a "mule" character, whom they play only to carry items for their main character.

Originally from Ultima Online or possibly Diablo 2, where it was used in reference to a character made with almost every craft skill, and only craft skills, specifically to craft items for the player's other characters. A character created for the sole purpose of serving one's other characters. In World of Warcraft, some crafted items require mats that can only be created every few days or on some similar timer, and so mules will taught the skill to make these required mats so that the crafting character can make the items more often.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMORPG_terms_and_acronyms#M
__________

Many people in wow have a character that is the storage character (aka - The Mule). You can have up to 10 characters on the server you're on so just make one of the toons a storage alt so that when your bags are full, you just swing by a mailbox and send items to it. Yes you have quite a bit of bag space available at first, but trust us it gets filled up quickly. So having another character to send these items too helps to conserve room and keeps everything kind of together. Then before logging off for the evening you log onto your bank alt / mule and post auctions and get your mats etc in order . . just whatever you need to do from the stuff that you've sent it. My mule is a level 1 Female NE priest that just wears a mace and no other clothes lol she has no skills / jobs - but all bank slots are purchased and all of her slots are at least filled with 14-16 slot bags.

As Renata stated - the whole bank alt with enchanting used to be good - but isn't done as much anymore due to the level restrictions on DE'ing, but if you do like Rotten said and level to 35 you'll be good. I personally have a level 29 that I send greens to that is my enchanter (just a mage I level from time to time - finally got him to 200 enchanting last night) so I don't DE with an alt and post mats as I'm keeping them for myself to level with at the moment. So he gets the lowbie (non ah-able) gear to DE for himself and my mule gets everything else. There are many options out there and many different ways of doing this depending on what you personally want to do.

Mail between characters on the same account is instant =)

Just wait until you're such a pack rat that you need to start another mule ( >< ) because you keep things around (if you're like me) as eventually another alt will need those items . . . eggs, clam meat, wolf meat, pearls, stacks of leather and of cloth, extra STV "Green Hills of Stranglethorn pages", etc etc you may start to hold on to things you pick up along the way to make that next toon more easy to skill / level up (including professions)

GL!

[Beruen]

I assume I create a new character, but since I can only play one character at a time, how does this actually work? Does this mean I can mail things to a character who is not currently in play?

Yes, you can mail any character on the same server of the same faction, regardless of whether or not they're logged in. Any mail sent to a character on the same account will arrive immediately, so you can mail the item, log out, log in as the AH character, and post the item in the AH without delay.

I've also heard that there are some benefits of giving this alt character "enchantment" but I don't quite understand how that helps.

This is no longer as true as it used to be. It used to be that a lvl 5 (6?) character could disenchant any disenchantable item that you could mail to them, because skill 1 enchanting was enough to disenchant anything. That is no longer the case. I think you would need to level your AH mule to 35 in order to DE anything in the game, and at that point, why bother with a mule?

Also, in terms of creating this alt character, should I consider a specific race or class? My main character is a Night Elf Rogue, and my chosen profession is skinning/leatherworking.

It really depends. There's a few considerations. First, there's how easy it is to get a lvl 1 character from the creation point to the AH. Alliance-side, dwarves and gnomes have the hardest run to the nearest AH, since they have a tunnel populated with mobs to run through to get to the AH. Elves have a long, but slightly safer run. Humans have a short, mostly safe run. Draenei have a medium run, in both distance and safety.

The second consideration is the convenience when you get there. As an AH mule, you'll mostly want easy access to the AH, a mailbox, and the bank. Alliance-side, Darnassus is the only town that's poorly laid out in this respect.

Finally, there's AH atmosphere, mentioned last, because it's really the least important factor in most cases. SW and IF auctionhouses are almost always packed with players, so there will always be some level of background noise. There are people that will run into those AHs and start playing the Piccolo of the Flaming Fire for half an hour just to annoy people (it's also possible that their motivation is that watching nightelves dance is the closest that they'll ever come to getting lucky). Darnassus and Exodar have much quieter auction houses. Though Unless you're letting an auction scan run, this really isn't much of an issue.

[nidanone]

WoW! ( ok pun intended ;)

Thanks for the great replies, and yes this is all starting to make sense now. It's really exciting how there are so many strategies and ways to play. I love it.


Ahh I see what you're saying about getting my alt to the AH at Darnassus... I've been playing many hours on my main character since I started playing about a week ago, and I'm a level 8 now, but only found Darnassus a couple of days ago... well maybe now that I know where it is my alt can find it faster....

and... since I have leather/skinning on my main.. is it possible to create some leather armor for my alt? Maybe I can mail him/her some getting started gear to help em out? Does that make sense to do?

I had some lower level gear, which I guess I should have kept, but after I got better armor I sold it to some vendors, maybe I shouldn't have done that and just put it in the bank...


NidanOne

[theshard]

Many people hit near this but unless I missed it no one said exactly--275 enchanting is needed to DE level 70 items. So the max you would need would be 275 (at least at the moment) and level 35.

[rottentomato]

WoW! ( ok pun intended ;)

Thanks for the great replies, and yes this is all starting to make sense now. It's really exciting how there are so many strategies and ways to play. I love it.


Ahh I see what you're saying about getting my alt to the AH at Darnassus... I've been playing many hours on my main character since I started playing about a week ago, and I'm a level 8 now, but only found Darnassus a couple of days ago... well maybe now that I know where it is my alt can find it faster....

and... since I have leather/skinning on my main.. is it possible to create some leather armor for my alt? Maybe I can mail him/her some getting started gear to help em out? Does that make sense to do?

I had some lower level gear, which I guess I should have kept, but after I got better armor I sold it to some vendors, maybe I shouldn't have done that and just put it in the bank...


NidanOne


i have two alts...one is my priest, which im currently leveling, and the other is a rogue that i havent really touched...both of them were bank alts at one time with different professions. the rogue acted as a guild bank for a while, and is about to get the boot because i have another one already at lvl 14...i started doing professions on them with mats i picked up (hebalism, skinning) so i made one a LW and alchemist...the priest is a tailor and enchanter, since i take all my toons and give them enchanting really. a lot of the high end outlands items sell for more than their mats on AH so i mail them to the rogue alt. but making items for them is a great thing to do. i had a whole buch of other alts at one time, and they had all the professions (back before level restrictions) so i made a ton of stuff for each of them to provide each other. since then ive changed servers and started over, but i can power level any of their stuff since i have the characters at appropriate levels. a rogue and hunter both take about 2-3 days /played to get to 35, so they make great additions to your alts for providing mats and gear.

[xDarkDrifterx]

I had some lower level gear, which I guess I should have kept, but after I got better armor I sold it to some vendors, maybe I shouldn't have done that and just put it in the bank...

Well you could, but generally as this is your first toon you'll want to Auction House (AH) those (BOE - bind on equip items - you can't AH or trade BOP - Bind on Pick Up - or Soulbound items) so you can earn money to get your mount, bigger bags, etc etc. If you already wore them for a while you can only sell them to a vendor or disencant them. Once you get a bit higher is generally when you will start to utilize and even need a bank mule / ah alt.

IMO - Right now you want to sell sell sell, save save save and make money so that you can afford all of your spells and skills and also get that first mount! :smiley:

GL!

[Wintrow]

For me, the AH alt is not so much of a space saver as a time saver.

Often my main is somewhere in the wild where a mailbox is a rare commodity. I'll be questing along and feel the need to relieve myself (of all those items that is :tongue:). It then I run off to the nearest mailbox, dump everything (even gray junk sometimes) to my alt and run off to quest/instance again. Every week or so I log into my alt, clean out my mailbox, sell stuff, handle auctions and send some of the profits back to my main.

This saves me the time of having to either run to a capital city or hang on to it every time I find an auctionable item.

Lately I've started to use him to store some mats as well, since as a Druid, I'm always lugging around a healing set.

[nidanone]

Do some servers not really have AH activity?

I'm on the Zuluhed server, and every time I've been to the auctioneer and that window pops up, I click around the different categories but I never see any items being auctioned, unless I'm just not doing it right?

[Kaldresh]

Are you hitting the search button?

Once you click on say.... leather armor (just as an example), click on the search button. A list of items should then come up.

[moopy]

Often my main is somewhere in the wild where a mailbox is a rare commodity. I'll be questing along and feel the need to relieve myself (of all those items that is :tongue:)

Playing a druid, right? In the woods, and needing to relieve yourself? There's a cliche to fit that, you know..

[Zendarin]

I keep an AH alt camped in IF who I log in every day and buy up cheap mats and relist them for a profit. Usually gets me about 5g a day. Just a lvl 5 character that I never play.

Then I sell in the AH normally with my real toons unless they are away from the city in which case I will mail everything to my AH alt to vendor for them. This has worked out great for me.

[clevins]

Do some servers not really have AH activity?

I'm on the Zuluhed server, and every time I've been to the auctioneer and that window pops up, I click around the different categories but I never see any items being auctioned, unless I'm just not doing it right?

Yeah, you have to hit the Search button... :)

You can either search by text string "vest" etc... or by clicking on a category to see everything in there. You can restrict by level range and rarity.

HOWEVER - yes, som AHs have little listed. For example, my server is old, v active... but 3:1 Alliance. So, the neutral AHs (in Booty Bay, etc... have very little activity. The alliance AHs have a lot. Make sure you're using a faction AH.

[rgirty]

I tried an alt a few times and just never did enjoy it as much as my main, not sure why. Maybe because my main has enchanting and since the patch a while back that changed it, I don't like to mail items, de them then mail the stuff back...I just fly back to ironforge/stormwind and do it on my main.

It is a great idea, just never caught on for me.