Auction House and Shard Exchange

[yavool]

This thread is dedicated to inquiries about playing the Auction House (AH) and Shard Exchange (SE) in DDO. Pointy and I have had some lively discussion about it, and over time, I will add more to this original post to help guide folks on it.

Astral Shards were introduced a while back as an alternative form of currency that can be purchased through the DDO store in quantity, or earned through completing certain objectives in the Monster Manual (e.g. defeating X number of different kinds of a certain creature type). Each shard is roughly worth about 20,000 platinum, however this isn't a concrete conversion rate, as basic economics (supply and demand), time immediacy, availability to grind for a particular item, and dumb luck also play into the valuation of items.

The AH and SE have a posting fee and take a third of any sale (with some exceptions, where they take a little more). For the AH, the posting fee is a small amount of plat based on the cost of the item (negligible, really), and for the SE, it is one Astral Shard, which is refunded if the auction doesn't sell.

On the AH, at minimum, most people will multiply the vendoring value (the price they could get if they just sold it to a general vendor) of the item they wish to post by a minimum factor of 10...or at least, that is what I would recommend. It is surprising to me that many just throw things on the AH at cost, which really doesn't make sense unless we have a bunch of humanitarians in DDO who don't want a decent item to go to waste and therefore put it on at a steal for the indigent to find like a diamond in the rough...otherwise, it make more sense to just vendor it or sell it in the House D/House K/Marketplace weapon/armor/item vendors, which actually pay more for the items and allow them to be bought at a slight markup by other players.

On the SE, it makes sense to put min bids and buyouts on amounts divisible by 3. Lots of people do initial price of 3, buyout of 4, but my standard is initial of 6 and buyout of 9 or 12, & if it is a more valuable item, I usually do 9/18, 12/21, 24/33, or some difference of 9 (unless it is a really valuable item, in which I will create a bigger spread). Just as khopeshes go really quick on the plat auction house, stat items and spell crit % items tend to sell well on the shard house, as well as synergistic items (intimidate with insightful intimidate, e.g.).

The single most important aspect of playing the Auction House and Shard Exchange is valuation of items. This is where the money is made (or not made if underpriced), and where we as Auctioneers can make some good profit.

Examples of this include the aforementioned khopeshes, spell crit items, stat items, and synergistic items. If you can find a glaciation sceptre of ice lore that also has insightful glaciation on it... BAM! That is a wonderful item that will sell high (assuming you don't want to keep it for yourself!) Speaking of, as a general rule, if you would keep it for yourself, then it will likely get a premium on the AH or SE. Some other items that sell well are Pet Certificates, certain Ioun Stones (want to grind Dreaming Dark, anyone?), vorpals, banishers, disruptors, certain named items, augmentation slot gems, ingredients (especially large greensteel ingredients), dragon scales, some exotics like heavy repeaters or bastard swords (yes, some traditionalists still actually use bastard swords!), and DC booster items (enchantment with insightful enchantment, e.g.).

Sometimes it is nice to search for items on the AH that generally go for a high amount on the SE, buy them with plat, and then sell them for Astral Shards. Sometimes (if you need plat) it can work the other way, with the 20,000 per shard exchange in mind. For example, I just sold a Lesser Boots of Striding and Springing (+20% move speed, +10 jump) on the AH for 400,000 (profit 245,000), and saw that exact same item on the SE for a buyout of 4 Astral Shards (about 80,000 plat). I didn't buy it, but I have been thinking about it, to maybe either flip for plat on the AH, or to raise its value on the SE to a higher amount to induce someone to think that it is more valuable (funny how that works when there is only 1 on the AH or SE!)

-yav